Breaking news: Explosives have been recovered from Byculla station and were defused by the police on Chowpatty Beach, Marine Drive. DNA and Mid-Day have details.

Email tip from Gaurav Sabnis.

Whew…its been an interesting two hours! Sitting under tree-shaded granite seating at Prithvis. Its a delight listening to Makrand Deshpande talk about theatre, Bollywood, art films and life in general.

I removed my brand new voice recorder, started explaining a little about blog life and the ball kept rolling from there….
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I just can’t get over how beautiful the weather was today in Mumbai. It was all the more pleasing because it was so sudden. I was woken up in the morning at 8 by a friend frantically asking me to smell the air and announcing that it had rained earlier in the morning. Stumbling to the window, I opened it and the fresh smell of wet earth wafted towards me. “Soundhi khushboo” as we call it in Hindi. I went back to sleep thinking that it was just a rude joke of nature’s and soon it would become humid and acrid. But surprisingly the weather not only continued, it became better and better.
It was so subtly cool throughout the day. The weather felt much better than what it was through the entire supposed winter. It kept lightly drizzling, pleasing the senses, giving off a tingling feeling which lasted till the next drizzle. Once the drizzle cumulated into a small shower too, but that just ended up refreshing the atmosphere.
Come late evening, and there was a burst of sunshine, followed by an enchanting burst of colors. The sky lit up into what seemed like perpetual fireworks, and a rainbow splashed across the canvas of the azure sky.

A gentle curve of red, magenta, blue, green, yellow and orange defined the expanse of blue dotted with small tufts of white. cottony clouds blushing orange with the sun. The sun was actually a blazing ball of orange, unblemished, bright orange, sinking really quick into the sea from my terrace. In the east, the spectacular colors gathered in a band and in the west there was a scattering of blue, orange and red. It was unbelievably beautiful, all the more since it was so unexpected. Here we were, preparing for the summer, feeling the heat, and all of a sudden God grants us a day of absolute bliss. Yes, it was like God was in Bliss, that can explain the sudden display of beauty.

The picture I have taken is from my cell, so it has not turned out all the well. If anyone has any pictures of today, Please do post. I will try to do the same too.

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Rain Gods must be listening to our pleads…..unseasonal rains accompanied with thunder lashed the city this morning. They are expected to continue for the next 48 hours.

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According to a report in today’s Mid-Day, here are the 12 most filthiest streets in Mumbai city.

Dr DN Road, near Hutatma Chowk

Garodia Road, Ghatkopar

Beginning tomorrow, the civic body will maintain a higher cleanliness standard on 70 roads in the city, which have been declared ‘zero tolerance zones’.

However, this is not the first time that BMC has initiated such a drive. Many similar attempts have failed without making a mark.

Lazyreader pens a very well set and comprehensive guide to surviving a Mumbai Local. If you’ve never traveled on a Bombay Local Train the caveats in Lazyreader’s post should not be dismissed as sarcasm, you’ve been warned they are all very true. All the same go read the post.

The process of traveling successfully on a train in Mumbai (Bombay) is one that requires cunning, shrewdness, strategy, agility and a killer instinct. It is both a science and an art. The first step is to research your routes to know which train you need to take at what time to ensure you are on the ‘fast’ or are seated for most of the journey. Sometimes, you might need to travel in an opposite direction to that of your intended destination. The reason is that you will enjoy an empty train traveling against rush hour crowds to get to a station where you can resume the right direction of travel with a fighting chance at a seat or a comfortable place to stand.

Yesterday, the sky was beautiful. Today it was phenomenal. As if Claude Monet himself had come down and painted this beautiful city a sky to calm fast beating hearts and soothe troubled minds.

(Full view highly recommended.)

Monet Sky over Mumbai.

Purple band across the sky.

Look, I’m a bird, I’m flying. No, I am just lying down on the tank on my building’s terrace :-$

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About these clouds:

Altocumulus Clouds (parallel bands or rounded masses)

“Altocumulus may appear as parallel bands or rounded masses (bottom photograph). Typically a portion of an altocumulus cloud is shaded, a characteristic which makes them distinguishable from the high-level cirrocumulus. Altocumulus clouds usually form by convection in an unstable layer aloft, which may result from the gradual lifting of air in advance of a cold front. The presence of altocumulus clouds on a warm and humid summer morning is commonly followed by thunderstorms later in the day. ”

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My prediciton about rain came true. Yaay. There was a beautiful rainbow in the sky today. I ran all the way over the crowded station bridge to check it out, but by then it had gone. Nevermind, Pragni has uploaded a picture of the rainbow :-)

Check out asli Hero Hiralal

http://ww1.mid-day.com/news/city/2006/march/132410.htm

I wonder where he managed to source 65 lakhs :)

You’ll find these on nearly every station – weighing machines with lights forming hypnotizing patterns. They are yellow, and have a pedestal to stand on. You drop in a one Rupee coin when the red and white wheel stops turning, and out comes your weight on a carboard ticket with a filmstars picture, complete with your fortune/description on it. I’ve been using these since I weighed just 15 kgs.
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read this
http://www.thesundaymail.news.com.au/common/story_page/0,5936,18345978%255E2765,00.html

Though I don’t like this linkage but it surely speaks volumes of what the rest of the world thinks about India and its Trains.