When I saw this Information Kiosk I was doubtful about its working. When I saw the word ‘Free’ it only added to my cynicism. But then I decided to check it out.

As the board says, you can “access free E-Mail, E-Banking, E-Greetings, Star Forecast, Exam Results, Railway Enquiry, Mumbai Guide, Movie, Restaurants, News, Health, Education and much more”. In addition you can also get information about taxes, bus routes, rail routes and fares.

Here is a side view of the kiosk. Colorful? :-)

I don’t know whom it is owned or run by, and the watchman was clueless too. From what I decipher, the kiosk has been set up by MCGM who has subcontracted the work to Infobay. The kiosks run on a Reliance Internet Connection. Surprisingly, MCGM states nothing about these kiosks on its website.

I must say that the connection is super-fast. Yahoo Mailboxes open in a blink. The only drawback is that you can browse through predefined sites only, and google isn’t among them. Each person is let in for 10 minutes. There is no queue which came as a surprise since anything free here would call for a queue. There was only one person waiting for his turn to go in, and he let me in first!

An inside shot:

These kiosks are very helpful for people who do not have the Internet or even computers at home. It gives them a chance to access a no-frills-internet for free.

Premshree’s (品速力) Personal Weblog tells us some peculiar facts about Mumbai and Chennai.

In Mumbai he tells us -

In Bombay, the higher up your house the more you pay. For example, in one of the places we’ve looked at, there’s a floor rise cost of INR 20 per sq. ft. So, basically, a 1000 sq. ft. flat in the 17th floor would cost around INR 300,000 more than the flat in the lowest floor (2nd).

Where as in Chennai -
The higher up you go the cost decreases.

Read the full post here.

I found this quiet peculiar on how real estate economics in different Indian cities in India are so different.
May be my fellow Metrobloggers in Chennai could confirm this peculiarity for us.
What is the case in your city ?

Some of us think about flickr first thing in the morning, and the last thing at night. While going about our day we take photos of things that would be perfect for some daily challenge. We don’t see a problem with stopping on the side of the road to photograph a sunset, or changing leaves.

The 170 or so members of the Mumbai Metroblogging flickr group seem to live by the same principal -
“If you haven’t photographed, shared and tagged it - you haven’t lived it.”

Therefore

In conjunction with the Flickr Universe, Mumbai Metroblogging, Vinu and Mumbai photoholics everywhere I hereby call the 1ST Mumbai Flickr Meet on Sunday 9th April, 5pm, Cafe Coffee Day, Carter Road. (I know its a little short notice, here is the list of people coming)

Here is the full address.

Shop No. 14/15,
Gagangiri Premises Building,
Ground Floor,
Carter Road
Bandra
Mumbai-52

If you have any questions, or would like to confirm your attendance, leave us a comment or fire off an email to akshaym [at] gmail[dot] com. Also, feel free to get in touch with me at 9833230562, as long as you’re not trying to sell me something that is.

For directions use the Mumbai Navigator stating caterroad(pali) as your desitination

If you’re interested leave a message here or just turn up

The frequency of my occasional visit to the refrigerator seems to have increased. Just a moment ago I took the 12 calculated steps to the kitchen and had the strange Pavlovian urge to lick my lips. As my outstretched hands opened the door of my frost-free my eyes grew bigger and saliva dropped from the corner of my open mouth. All this at the sight of gold…. golden mangoes. Momentarily the searing heat, the 75% humidity, the sweat, did not matter. All that mattered was the luscious explosive flavour of India’s favourite summer fruit - the mango.

[Mother and son duo, arrange the seasons first set of Mangoes]

It may astonish you to know that the mango, Mangifera indica L., India’s most celebrated of fruits, is a member of the family Anacardiaceae-notorious for embracing a number of highly poisonous plants. All the same the fruit that has its name, Aam, derived from the Sanskrit word meaning “of the people” lives up to its name and is truly the “aam aadmi ka phal” (forgive the pun - translates to “common man’s fruit).

Be it ‘Bombay Yellow’ (’Bombai’), ‘Malda’ (’Bombay Green’), ‘Pairi’, Safdar Pasand’,'Suvarnarekha’ , ‘Langra’, ‘Rajapuri’, ‘Alphonso’, ‘Bangalora’, ‘Dusehri’, ‘Gulab Khas’ , ‘Fazli’ ,’Safeda Luck now’ and ‘Banganapalli’, you will find all these mango varieties in Mumbai at some time or the other during the season.

Mumbai is often the first urban stop of the mango so I decided to pay a visit to Crawford Market to welcome the first crop of mangoes this summer season has brought us .

Here are some pictures

[Fresh mangoes, fresh from Ratnagiri Maharashtra.]

[A Restaurant tempts possible customers with cold Aamras. Aamras is mango pulp usually consumed with meals]

[Sorry these are not Mangoes but Pomegranates. I'm told their great anti-oxidents and help prevent heart disease]

If you are reading this post in the States these golden beauties are coming to a grocery store near you, courtesy Mr. Bush and his Nukes for Mangoes deal.
I will take your leave now, as I make another visit to the fridge.

An Early morning breeze creeps up the shallow saline creek, the salt coupled by the drying fish behind me adds to the smells. I’m in Versova, a beach in the Mumbai suburb of Andheri. This beach faces on the Arabian Sea and is home to population of Mumbais’s fishing community. Versova in the morning makes for quiet a scene as the fishing boats arrive back from their early morning expeditions. The fish mostly shrimp, bombay duck, shark, is then unloaded and shipped off to the nearest fish market.

The “fish” in the picture is Bombay Duck. The Bombay duck (Marathi: bombil) is, despite its name, a lizardfish. It is native to the waters between Mumbai and Kutch in the Arabian Sea, and a small number are also found in the Bay of Bengal. The fish is often dried and salted before it is consumed. If freshly caught, it is sometimes eaten fried in a batter; and in its dried form, it is commonly eaten in a curry. It is also prepared as a pickle. The bones of the fish are soft and easily chewable. It’s absolutely yummy I tell you. You haven’t been to Mumbai if you not eaten fried bombil or bombil fry as we call it.

Update - Workers and management of Akbarallys store have reached a settlement.

Guess this will be the last and final update on my Akbarallys-Santacruz post. Hopefully if and when another one comes up, I hope its better news than this time.

My friend, who passes the shut store on a daily basis, saw it open the other day. She approached the workers sitting outside and learnt that a settlement has been reached upon. She immediately called and informed me about the recent matter.

The management finally decided upon a settlement. They are willing to give every worker a sum of seventy thousand rupees, they had initially decided on fifty thousand. They have come up by just twenty thousand rupees, where as the workers demand was one lakh-fifty thousand rupees.

The owner opens the store on a daily basis since the past few days. Goods from the warehouse get loaded into the shop and it is then handed over to its respective manufacturers.

Workers still sit outside the store everyday and will continue to do so until they acquire their well deserved dues.

They all seemed disappointed and tired…tired of their daily struggle and harassment. One of them mentioned “Even though we are not satisfied, if one agrees, others don’t have much choice but to agree with the given settlement. There isn’t much that can be done. Wasting anymore time doesn’t make sense.”

Hope things had ended on a better note than the current situation.

As usual the system favored the powerful and influential, whereas the rest can just go to hell!

Anyways I wish the workers all the very best in the future.

Suraj was rescued from the airport. He is dark and handsome. He is very sweet, timid and can be slightly mischievous too. He will make an excellent family pet. He loves attention and enjoys going out for walks.

Would you like to adopt Suraj and many like him, well then head on to the Welfare of Stray Dogs Adoption Mela at Dhanraj Mahal, Apollo Bunder, Near Cottage Industries Emporium and the Gateway of India, Colaba, Mumbai on Sunday, April 9, 2006 between 5 pm and 7 pm.

Uma of IndianWriting has more details.

The silence rings through the waist high weeds-green, dense and prickly. I am entangled in the vegetation and yet I walk forward. Thorns pierce through my socks as I brush off the pollen. A rash breaks out as my arms glow red, I know scratching will not help but I do not fight the stimuli. I have realised that in nature’s eye humans are an invasive species. A bulbul watches us from her ivory tower in the mango tree laughing at our endeavour to fight nature’s wall of green. I let myself fall down on the lush wild green grass, close my eyes and think, “I am in Bassein, in search for haunted forts, fallen churches and a lost Portuguese principality-India’s piece of the Renaissance.”

Vasai as we know it now is the site of the ruins of the Portuguese citadel of Bassein. What were once churches, villas and buildings that supported more than 10,000 colonialists is all but overgrown moss ridden stone. I do not know why the Portuguese chose this place to be their imperial capital in India - may be it reminded them of the lavadas of Madiera. If history had played out differently this could have been the site of Bombay [well they would have probably called it something else] and we would have all spoken Portuguese instead of English.

[The Arched remains of a Church]

A rusted ASI signpost briefs us about the heritage structures we have stumbled upon. The signpost itself is an example of the neglect we see around us. Hugo was the buddy with me on this excursion if you wondering about the ‘we’ in the equation. Hugo, is a Portuguese linguist who is studying the Portuguese Creole spoken in Daman & Diu for his Phd. An ideal guide for a visit to the site of a Portuguese ruin don’t you think ? I asked him to translate some of the inscriptions and fill me on some of the history.

Of all the Portuguese forts still existing in India, Bassien, is one of the most imposing and in a better state of conservation. Today Baçaim is a tangle of ruins, the city has, still well preserved, his imposing boundary walls, with his two access doors (”Porta do Mar” and “Porta da Terra”) and his 10 bastions. Scattered inside the walls there are the ruins of numerous town-houses and churches, among other things: the church and the convent of the Dominicans, the Franciscan church of Santo Antonio (with numerous Portuguese tombstones, the remains of the cloister and the ruins of the bell-tower), the church of Nossa Senhora da Vida, the church and convents of the Augustinian, the “Camara” palace, the Misericordia, the church Matriz of S. José, the ruins of the Jesuits church and convent. Well preserved are also the remains of the old citadel of Sao Sebastiao.

[source: colonial voyage]

[Silhouette of Hugo at the Alter of the Franciscan church of Santo Antonio]
(more…)

What is it about Mumbai that attracts people to it in dozens, especially in summer. Like insects which are pulled by a hot flame in hordes, people from all over India drive to Mumbai in hordes when its hot and flaming in the summer. And hence Summer Camps exist and prosper. So i was given the news a few days back that a bunch of cousins and other far and distant relatives are going to land up in Mumbai in May. And to provide for their entertainment, they are to be enrolled in a good Summer Camp, where they can learn a lot in a few days or a fortnight. And they included that it would help if the camp would teach them something new, useful and have some special highlights with a lot of fun too. I was advised by a lot of people that Mumbai has summer camps galore.
But how do i zero in on one good camp which would take the kids off my hands, be somehwere accessible and also be good for them. I kept my ears open for any advertisments and my eyes open for any banners. It seem Prithvi theatre has some summercamp every year but its awfully expensive for just a few hours and it also does nt teach a lot in variety. After asking around a lot (and i mean a lot) i found this perfect place.

Its a Summer Camp very simply called just “Summer Camp ‘06 ” which teaches a lot of activities and also has a finale function,a stage show where the kids perform in more than 10 activites. And the best part about this place is that it’s very reasonably priced at 1800 for 15 days from morning to evening. These people here are operating on a NO PROFIT NO LOSS basis. These are all professionals from various fields who are getting together just for the benefit of kids and the fun of it. I turned away super impressed from this organization. A group like this in Mumbai, where everyone’s out to look for their own profit. Surprising. I called up one of the enquiry lines and the lady I spoke to said that I could register at the school where they hold the camp, (A.H.Wadia in andheri) or at a number of locations all over andheri, also siblings were most welcome. All my cousins are enrolled here. Working parents ahoy, this seems to be a gold mine for your kids to excavate and learn all the activites enlisted.
P.S: This Camp functions every year, starting from the first Sunday of May. Its url changes each year with the year’s digits instead of the previous years’. Therefore the url next year will be:

First there was Mumbai, then there was Chennai and now there is Bangalore. Yes you’ve heard it right, The Garden City of India, Bangalore joins the MetroUniverse. Why don’t you say HI !

Image By $ydney