It’s appalling to see the treatment bestowed upon employees of big establishments here in Mumbai. Imagine you are on your way to work one morning; just to find out that your sole means of ‘bread and butter’ is snatched away from you…forever…. Extinct overnight!!

No intimation given, no prior warning….NO JOB anymore…What a shock!

This is the story that Akbarallys-Santacruz (Mumbai), has to tell. On Friday the 10th of February, the store all of a sudden decided to fasten its doors to the world.

For over a month, 40-permanent workers have been squatting outside the estranged shop. Unable to get over the untimely death of their second home; where they have spent over 30 years of their lives. Struggling day in and day out, to obtain some kind of justice.

A good friend of mine walks past Akbarallys, (a brand that was created 108 years ago) on a daily basis. For the past one month she has been narrating various incidents regarding its employee’s demands for justice. So today I decided to leave work a little early, and see it for myself.

Driving over in my A/C car I casually thought over a few questions to ask, but at that point didn’t realize the gravity of the situation. I wasn’t even sure, if I wanted to write a post on this.

As soon as I parked my car, workers assuming I have come to shop, yelled “dukhan bandh ho gaya hai, do mahena ho gaya.” I got down and into the premises, as usual had to explain my self and my purpose. To which, for obvious reasons I had umpteen volunteers, ready to open their hearts out….and so here it goes.
(more…)

It’s time to roll out the drums. From the land of the Kanjeevaram Sari, Rajnikant and Jayalalitha……comes another stalwart….Metroblogging Chennai

OK, enuf of stupid jokes.

Metroblogging Mumbai welcomes the presence of CHENNAI into the MB pantheon of world cities. It was getting tough to be the lone city and pull the weight of a billion people. Now we have Chennai to share some of the load.

Some of the authors at MB Chennai are heavyweight bloggers like Kiruba Shankar and ChandraChoodan.

Looks like its gonna be a great ride….

So stop by and say hi !!

For anybody who has seen a bollywood dance number or has sadly glanced upon yet another remixed music dance video you would have found the essential constituent of both is the “Sextra”. The sextra is a just like any extra but is ’supposed’ to add the all essential ’sex appeal’ to these videos. These extras are mostly of eastern European or Russian decent and make up for the numbers behind the front running ‘dance number queen’

The reason I’m bringing this up, is a friend, Jkoshi on a recent visit to film city took this picture - he calls it “Memoirs of a Bollywood Geisha”

Here a more pictures from Jkoshi’s photostream on flickr.

The famous dabbawalas of Bombay are online. They launched a new website

As informed to the Mid-Day

To leverage full potential of information technology, we have launched our website MyDabbaWala.com. It has the facility to apply for Dabba facility online too, which has been developed with latest technologies. [...link...]

The site is all over the place when it comes to design. I wish they could get someone to design a more sleeker finished product, in line with the excellent service they provide in real life. However there is a wealth of information there…

A dabbawala, (Hindi: dabba - (Lunch) Box, wala - an appelation for One who carries) sometimes spelled dabbawalla or dabbawallah, is a person in Mumbai (Bombay), India, whose job is carrying and delivering freshly made food from home in lunch boxes to office workers. Tiffin is an old-fashioned English word for a light lunch, and sometimes for the box it is carried in. Dabbawalas are sometimes called tiffin-wallas.

Though the work sounds simple, it is actually a highly specialized trade that is over a century old and which has become integral to Mumbai’s culture.

Stop by there and you can actually place an order for the dabbawala to come and start picking up your daily lunch. Cool eh !!

Ramshackle corrugated tin, plywood, plastic, pukkah bricks, sheets of asbestos, sweat, toil, people and garbage make Dharavi, just like piles of earth, sand, clay and other materials make ant hills. Dharavi and many other slums like it are nothing but human ant colonies built by legions of our urban poor. They are places which are at same time sombre, moving, joyful and interesting .Push and pull factors, bring people from our villages here everyday in search for something better. They settle here much to the neglect of our apathetic eyes. But under the squalor is great spirit and ingenuity. I went looking for this spirit in this place most people refer to as ‘Asia’s largest slum’ but I would prefer to call the ‘Heart of Mumbai’.

(more…)

A day in Vile Parle’s vegetable market can show u such amazing things. I ‘m usually one of the lat people to be found t such a place but when mothers drag their kids along, i guess kids all over the universe do just what is expected. So a few days back, I landed up in the market area of Vile parle to accompany my mom in shopping ( read as “to carry her shopping bags”). This place, needless to say, is jam packed with pushcarts and thelas full of people selling their wares. There’s just enough space for 2 lanes of cars to move, hence it has been made a one-way. But as rampant in most of Mumbai, one lane is used for parking the innumerable rickshaws and cars. So the traffic moves very slow. What is surprising thought is the mixed array of people who come here to buy vegetables. Through my 45 minutes there, I saw a heavily dressed aunty gold border zari sari n all step out frm her chauffered silver BMW, a 40 something lady in a poncho and hip jeans in her chauffered chevrolet optra, a chic 30 something woman in capris and a pink tank complete with a kid on her hip alight from a huge SUV.

(more…)

Just adding some colour to Pragni’s Holli post.

Color here, Color there, Color color everywhere.
Its the most colorful festival of the season again, and people sure are colorful. From my home on the top floor of my building, every terrace in the vicinity is visible. And its splattered with colors. Predominantly red. Everyone has painted there buildings red. I have a film star who lives behind my home, hence there is a DJ Party going on there, with blasting music, shrieks, water barrels (to dump people in) and ofcourse colors.
Everytime a new celebrity steps of his/her car, there’s a collective shriek and a stampede to reach the celebrity and dump them into the water barrel. Meanwhile everyone playing on their terraces near by halt their fun, to go and see who is thats come.
And here I am, sitting at my home and analyzing everyone getting down, dirty and colorful. And not to mention recieving a million messages from people who are getting colored. Wonder when are they getting the time to message between coloring each other.

Happy Holi Mumbai.

After a long break, yesterday I visited the ‘DOGGY PARK’ with my two (now huge) best friends..my pets, Spike and Rusty.

Doggy Park, located along the seaside in the suburbs,is a long open-to-air green patch, meant only for our adorable four-legged community. Previously this space was a walking zone, but after much struggle it got reserved for pets. It’s amazing to see people travel long distances, just to bring their loved ones here almost every evening. The place is packed on a Sunday evening with tons of doggies. From the tiny Chuahuahua to the mighty Great Dane, the varieties are endless. From tiny cud able puppies to full-grown handsome dogs, size does not matter. All the doggies learn to play, wrestle and interact in harmony with each other. Sharing their toys, food and water..sometimes even squabbling over trivial matters. Each and every doggy has a blast!

The mind is at ease, completely serene.sitting alongthe promenade with the wind blowing past your face,watching people of all ages interact, dogs running around, playing with their owners…trainers doing their jobs, passerby’s stopping by to pet doggies. Eventhe road side vendors along with kiddies’ ride stalls make great business on a Sunday. An excellent ambience, an evening dedicated wholly for dog-lovers.

Mid-day does a great job on unusual feature stories like going along with a night chaiwala on his rounds. I’ve seen these guys on their cycles serving chai and coffee in small plastic cups. Their existence is one of the reasons why I love Bombay. Want a cuppa at 3 am? You don’t have to shell out 300 bucks at the Taj. The chaiwala at the gateway will serve you piping hot tea for a measly rupees three.

However, I rarely patronise them because the tea / coffee they serve is not to my liking. I prefer either a good Parsi mint tea or Gujju masala chai and brewed coffee. No instant neskaapis please. Now if only the cops and the BMC were to allow Barista and Cafe Coffee Day to stay open all night.