Alvida and da hooker!

Love this song:

chupake se kahin, dheeme paanv se
jaane kis taraf, kis ghadi
aage badh gaye hamse raahon mein
par tum toh abhi the yahin
kuchh bhi na suna, kab ka tha gila
kaise keh diya alvida

jinake darmiya gujri thi abhi
kal tak yeh meri zindagi
dono baahon ko, thandi chaanv ko
hum bhi kar chale alvida
alvida, alvida, meri raahein alvida
meri saansein kehati hai, alvida
alvida, alvida, abb kehna aur kya
jab tune keh diya, alvida

sunle bekhabar, yuun aankhein pher kar aaj tu chali ja
dhundegi nazar humko hi magar har jagah
aisi raaton mein leke karvate, yaad hamein karna
aur phir haar kar kehna kyun magar, keh diya alvida alvida
koi puchhe toh zara, kya socha aur kaha alvida
alvida, alvida, abb kehna aur kya
jab tune keh diya, alvida

??? dil chale, phir bhi dil kahe
kaash mere sang aaj hote tum agar, hoti har dagar gulsita
tumse hai khafa, hum naaraaz hai, dil hai pareshaan
socha na suna tune kyun bhala keh diya alvida alvida
koi puchhe toh zara, kya socha aur kaha alvida
alvida, alvida, abb kehna aur kya
jab tune keh diya, alvida

kyun socha aur kahan alvida
dono baahon ko, thandi chaanv ko
hum bhi kar chale alvida

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From the movie Metro - life in the city.

It reminds me of those hard rock numbers of late 90s. Kind of November Rain in Hindi. (sorry guys thats a personal comment and not a statement)

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And now presenting da hooker. Found this in the back lanes of Mahim. The Hooker is a cycle with the carrier converted to function like ... well a hook. Hence the Hooker. Normally milk delivery guys use the contraption.

Somethings Fishy

stink and soul free fish

When was the last time I went out to buy fish? Mumbai has a long and pretty much attractive coastline (if you ignore the plastic and filth). Some citizens have forced the government to kick the vandals on the beaches out and have claimed the beach for themselves. Juhu for example. But then where are the Koli Fishermen and Women? Some of them are seen around Mahim and Bandra and sometimes selling fish in versova. But largely the fish buying community seems to have been seduced by the stink free plastic environment of the super shops. Fishes here are all dressed up and ready to go. Pretty pinks and lady fishes and pomfrets and surmai, with some handsome lobsters and prawns thrown in.

Stink and soul free!

CP Surendran

dug out from the shivaji park crossword the sole copy of CP Surendran's Portraits of the spaces we occupy. It is a patchy collections when compared to Canaries... but I enjoyed it over mucky coffee sitting in the midst of Himesh's ministrations to some suroor and a dozen young couples with things other than coffee on their minds. I must have been a strange sight.

Here is something that clicked in the head:

Key

No lock was safe from me.

I could blow through a keyhole
In nine different ways, pick tumblers
With my breath.

A lock with a hundred levers,
And all I needed was a blade of grass.

I took the secrets of my trade to the grave.
Such wisdom was best kept under lock and key.

But nothing prepared me for the worms.

They opened my crossed hands, opened my shest
Opened my eyes, bored through my brains
Kept me opening as I listened

To levers giving in

Tumblers falling

Doors opening, opening

A lock picked without end

The shaping of space.

(from Portraits of the spaces we occupy)

Amazing stuff.

big sky and the first rains

Want to witness the big sky? and the first bit of rains, drive down to Kharghar - the upcoming planned bit of Navi Mumbai. Loved the chai from a thela. Here are the pics of the first bit of rains on an afternoon.

Chai time in a plastic cup



Rain Rain on the windscreen!



Wild streams

the sad story of the soggy croissant

It never fails. You are hungry and you walk into the Brio, Barista, CafeCoffeeDay, Qwiky's and order the simplest of things one can want. A croissant. And what you get is a soggy, nuked, tasteless mass of something so wrong that you want to kill the guys who served it.

Where are those lovely cream rolls with a little jam at the end, yes the red jam that you so greedily licked off first, or the small cakes of Santosh Bakery in Shivaji Nagar Pune? And the brun that dad got home while it was still hot and mom served it with greasy omlettes?

Last week just before a meeting we wanted to eat, which is not usual considering my partner in crime is a confirmed foodie. We walked into the humid confines of Stadium Bakery at Churchgate and ordered chai and bread toast with butter. Nothing fancy here, there are two crisp toasted bread slices with a thin layer of butter and some little sprinkle of sugar. Dip it into the chai and experience nirvana.

Anyone knows where to get the perfect croissants? And excuse me, I do not want to go to the BBC @ Marriot!

I became

random thoughts

Take a few random thoughts,
scatter them on the floor,
then try some meanings,
derive them,
dash them.

Then set them in a box,
and kill them.

of boxes and babies

Do you remember that famous Mastercard ad where everything else has a price but the best part of life - babies playing with an empty carton is free? I used to have a smile whenever I saw that ad and always wondered if babies are like that. Some 372 days ago my first born was handed over to me. A little dusky baby girl with fingers so thin that I was worried for days that if by chance someone pressed to hard they would crumble. It was divine intervention, everyone from moms and fathers to strangers were all convinced that it was going to be a baby boy and lo and behold we had a little girl, and I was the only one who always thought it was gonna be a girl (ok, we are getting cliched). Coming back to babies and boxes. This afternoon our girl finally discovered the box! she has chucked everything else and has been trying out this while cardboard box, she tried to crawl into it and then over it and last seen was trying to use it as a drum.

musings of all kinds

Coffee Cup Musings



On particularly bad days I begin by spending an half hour with my cup of coffee at the Shivaji Park Barista. Amidst two or three pairs of misty eyed couples, one guy who is always there and sodden baristas who make industrial waste type coffee, I get my bearings and my sense of balance. I need it since I have either driven down or have been driven from the western suburbs of Kandivali West on a road that resembles bombed out Iraq ( smoke from burning carcasses of black sooty tar drums, one ancient road roller, MSRDC bunk type trenches and another broken down Indica.

Try the coffee, if it does not cheer you it will atleast give you a sense of how lucky you are to survive after consuming the sludge. Mahim bay muck looks quite similar. Must make a note to ask the barista guys where they source their coffee beans from.

Elephant / Eliphipant musings



Trucks, cars, buses, bikes and an elephant on Mahim causeway!!! An elephant? well I thought after one lady elephant died a cruel death on the Pune highway they managed to chase all the guys with these gentle animals out of Mumbai.

It is nice to see this one lumber on in the morning traffic. Cheery too, like the time I took my daughter to the Ayyappa temple to show her the Elephipant there, she was eight months old then and I doubt she understood why her father insisted on her touching the elephant. Atleast she decided to oblige and give me a blank look later. Elephants are nice I told her, they never forget and I know you will never forget this one. She did.

Afternoon sun musings



Tried looking at the sun today, it stung like never before. Then captured it on the phone camera, locking the poor sod in pixels. Maybe one day we will let him out.