• The 325 feet majestic monument really stands out and will surely drive more tourists.
• Its the world’s largest stone dome built without any supporting pillars
• Over 8k people can meditate inside the Pagoda.
• Genuine Buddha relics enshrined in the Pagoda.
• There are no entry fees or charges of any kind.
• Free Bus from Car Park to the Pagoda
• Located in a great location with great view and really breezy place.

Things to remember :

• You cant meditate or enter the dome unless you have completed the 10 day vipassana course.
• Visitors can just roam around the Pagoda and see the people meditating inside the dome.
• Lotsa work is still pending and it resembles a big under construction project, It should be at least a year or two till everything looks like the pictures in the Brochures.

I will definitely wanna  do the 10 day course subject to getting leave from work :) Some snapshots of the Global Pagoda

Historically it was not so. I remember going to Khajuraho as a student of architecture and noticing that within the thousands of temple carvings, was a vast encyclopedia of every form of sexual preference. If at that time this was main stream enough to become part of a temple monument, then why is it that today we, the same people and society shun it. A lot of that blame can be put on the Victorian morals dumped on India during the 400 year British presence in India.

However things are begining to change. Just last year there was a Gay Pride Parade in Mumbai and other cities and the general awareness and acceptance seems to be on the increase. At least in the urban metros.

And therefore, it is not long that this presence is felt in the Indian blogosphere too.

Gaysi: The Gay Desi is a new group blog that has been up and about for a short while now and their writing and content is crisp, fresh and interesting.

As the founder Broom writes

I wanted to have a space where gaysis could come and share their stories, their triumphs and failures, their struggles and their dreams, their hopes and despair. And in doing so, give other gaysis a sliver of hope too.

But this blog is not just for gaysis. It’s for the non-gaysis who want to be better friends or better relatives to their gaysi friends and family members. It’s a place where we will, hopefully, demystify what it means to be a gaysi.

So hop on over, and join the transformation to a more understanding society for one and all. One that transcends all barriers, especially the one of sexual orientation.

Traffic was light as it has been since Wednesday night, even for a Sunday afternoon/evening. Even so, the journey took us a half and hour either way. We passed shops that were open, people out for a stroll with their families, cars driving down…but there was an air of barely concealed tension. I had my camera out for the better part of the journey and I know I drew some curious (and not necessarily friendly) glances from the other cars. In case you’re wondering what an atmosphere of terror looks like, come to Mumbai right now.

The photos I took today of Mumbai in post-terror trauma….

Here’s the media jumping onto the sympathy-brand visibility bandwagon, over the Western Express flyover. DNA asks…

Spirit of Mumbai
FOR HOW LONG?

Siddhivinayak looks quite empty by its usual standards. To my god-fearing friend I asked,

So much security for bhagwan. What happens to the bhagwan ke bhakt who’re getting blasted?

As we pulled into town, the Marine drive, a view I usually wait for since its so breath-taking and which causes me immediately to wince since its packed with people – the Marine drive was empty save for a few stragglers. On our way back though we did see a number of people carrying placards and signs of the ‘Stand up and speak, Mumbai’ variety. No photographs of that, I’m afraid. The light gave out and so did my spirit.

A number of places we passed had signboards and hoardings recalling the bravery of those who fell. Not Just Jazz By the Bay had a very simple white cloth banner with just their names. Nothing more required. Every Mumbaiker’s heart speaks the same story right now. May our brave heroes rest in peace.

The Oberoi Trident, beamed into all our households as a backdrop to Barkha Dutt (”Oh, there goes another blast! I just heard more gunfire!”) loomed in sight. It was strange how normal it felt. Just like any other day on the road, just another high-rise building to pass in town. It is indeed strange how quickly the mind wants to forget what it is horrified by. But I force myself to remember the hostages, the firing, the massacre, the blasts and the final shots of the survivors exiting. Mumbai must not forget this horror, this indignity.

And finally, the centerstage of the terror. Colaba Causeway was shut to incoming traffic so we walked in, passing Cafe Mondegar (an equally popular cafe as Leopold’s) on the way. Now on any normal day, this photograph would not have been possible since there’d be traffic zooming right through where I stood. What’s more, that shot wouldn’t have appeared either, clogged as it usually is with the pub regulars.

Today though, whatever crowd there was, was concentrated up ahead. Leopold’s Cafe, its owners said would open very quickly even if its customers took some time to start feeling safe enough to visit again. It turns out they did open this morning but had to shut shop because there was too much crowd. Mumbai, I’d say you amaze me, if I did have any emotion left to feel.

The TV crews were still parked outside and around Leopold’s though mercifully we didn’t see scores of reporters jostling for soundbytes. I guess even media-hounds need their rest and thank heaves for that.

And last of all, the Taj Mahal hotel. We couldn’t get too close as it was cordoned off. Here’s the closest I could get to it, relying on my camera’s zoom. This was shot from Colaba Causeway, in the lane next to Leopold’s.

Since we couldn’t congregate at Leopold’s as per the original plan, we went into Cafe Mondegar. Slowly, bitterly, unwilling as it may be, Mumbai limps back to life.

On our way back, we saw the Peace March begin, people walking with candles.

Then we landed on the news channel band. And there it stayed and hasn’t moved since.

Of course we started watching something described as a gang war. This built up into a chase behind the elusive truth of what was happening, trying to piece together the tracks of someone (some people?) who’d turned up at C.S.T. station with guns, popped up five minutes later at the Taj Mahal hotel and then apparently transmogrified a few meters away at the Oberoi/Trident. Abrupt cut to assemble a whole lot of other details.

Nariman House

Grant Road station

Rubber boats

AK47

Vileparle

Dockyard

Stolen Skoda

JJ School of Art

RDX

Hijacked police van

It was well past 1 am before I realized I hadn’t budged from the seat in front of the television set. In those three hours we’d absorbed and internalized all the starting details and figured out enough to relay them to others. By 2:30 am, I was tweeting away, weaving myself intricately into the drama that the whole city, a few minutes later the whole country and within a few hours the whole world would become a part of.

Well past 3:30am I collapsed into bed from sheer exhaustion. Emotional roller-coasters are tiring and I’d been riding for over 5 hours nonstop.

I awoke four hours later and for a virginal 20 seconds, my consciousness was devoid of any sensation. Then I remembered and raced to the living room where the television was already on. I’m not normally a TV person, even less in the morning and I only meant to get a fix on the day’s situation to take a call on going to work or not. I looked away ten minutes later to find four hours had passed.

The day is otherwise a blur to me. I don’t remember eating or sleeping. But I do remember flipping channels when one started going on a loop and finding another angle on the story within a fraction of a second. I remember phone calls and left-hand-typing SMSes with the right hand tapping out on the TV remote control. I remember watching a video shot on a cellphone, reading the ticker text at the bottom of the screen, listening to my caller at the other end and relaying a super-quick analysis of it all to my family. I remember tweeting, retweeting, replying, reading tweets, following tweeple and all of it on that woefully inadequate application called m.twitter on my superslow GPRS connection. I remember shifting into gmail every couple of hours for quick checks and having to reload each time since the phone doesn’t allow for multiple windows. And I remember feeling enraged at my computer internet connection going down at such a time.

The day ended around midnight for my family as they retired with the news that the Taj Mahal hotel had been recovered. I stayed glued to the set and Twitter. When 45 minutes later, came the news that it had been a hasty wire and there was still unidentified gunfire coming out from Taj, I actually rushed back to wake everyone up. Finding them asleep, I hastened back to my couch-seat, unwilling to miss even a minute of the drama. My brain gave out at 4 am.

In this interim while I watched a panel discussion among semi-celebrities being intellectual and socialist about the attack.

I (with a number of other blogger/tweeters) panned the politicians and sneered at the PM’s address. I had a lump in my throat as I watched the minute-to-minute battles of the firemen, the cops and the NSG commandos.

I watched replays of the highlights of the feature like the firing from the police van, the interview with the Navy chief, the soundbytes from the British hostage who’d escaped.

I tsk-tsked at Barkha Dutt’s insensitive questions to the relatives waiting outside for their loved ones trapped in the buildings. I listened with an almost indecent glee to the frenzied statements by celebrities and the dead-toned voices of the junta on the roads.

I processed numbers of hostages, prisoners, casualties, terrorists, commandos and mulled over them all.

And I also contributed to the mass panic, the collective griping, the unified expression of support, the unanimous indignation. I dissolved into and became one with everyone around and outside the terror situation – the media; the social media.

This morning my frenzied participation was interrupted by having to get out to go to work. Even so, I found myself holding my phone camera ready to capture anything that might contribute to the drama. Zilch (mercifully, in retrospect). The minute I got to office and was connected, I was back. Twitter, email, blogs and the news streaming feeds kept us very much plugged into every nuance. With every fake rumor, we reverberated along with the collective panic in the city and breathed a synchronized sigh of relief when they were proven false.

This might have continued ad infinitum. After all, I can’t see any end in sight just yet. From what I hear, hostage situations in terrorism aren’t quick-and-dry deals and rather tend to drag out to exert pressure on both sides. But I spent an hour with a friend. Though our conversation started with our sharing our fears, our mutual outrage and our common jaded-by-now analysis of the situation….it gave way smoothly into the more mundane details of our daily lives, our own little soap operas.

And as I made my way home, I realized I was breathing smoothly for the first time in two days. Reality shows are tricky things. They’re interesting and engaging simply because of how well we identify with them, how involved we get with them. And we get our emotional adventures as we swing up and down and get rattled about by the situations we find ourselves in, by proxy. We connect and we’re thrilled to the bone. Yes, I said thrilled, not chilled. It’s an adrenalin rush.

Don’t get me wrong, I’m just as outraged by the indignity of fear perperated on us as a city and as a nation by a handful of terrorists. My heart still aches for the bravery of the people who fell defending us yesterday as it does for the broken people staggering out of the Taj, Nariman House and Trident. But I can’t stand anymore thrills from chills. I’m disconnecting from the most vivid reality show I’ve ever been a part of. This is too much reality for me and I’m ODing. I think I’d rather go live my own mundane, selfish little existence for little while just so I can survive. Enough, already.

Later this morning, there was a sudden buzz that a fresh round of firing had opened at C.S.T. station and that hostages had been taken. This turned out to be a false rumour. Apparantly someone had heard some noise that sounded to them like gunfire and panicked.

Just ten minutes back, I heard what sounded like a blast. I jumped but I ignored it. Two minutes later it was followed by another one. I looked up to see if anyone else had heard it. Apparantly no one else had. I was just debating whether to go back to my desk (in one corner of the office so I could have been the only one to hear it, being closest) or tell someone (and risk starting another panic wave). Upstairs someone else had heard it too and called us to check it out. We raced to the terrace, hearts thundering. It turned out to be nothing more than the daily workers going about their deed at the construction site next door. Whhhewwwww.

Yes, I’m very jumpy. I’ve been proud to be a Mumbaiker and faced bandhs, riots, bomb blasts, train explosions, bus stoning incidents, hostile weather conditions and various acts of local violence. All this and I got up matter-of-factly and went to work the next day, paying no more heed to my anxious relatives than I did to the nuisances of daily traffic. But this is different. Living in what seems to be unending terror, watching my own mind lose rationale and turn what it sees into wild fears is horrible.

And I’m angry. Very angry, on behalf of my city, the country if I may say so. This time, I swear, I don’t want to display the resilient Mumbai spirit. I just want to feel safe in my own home, goddammit! And that Mumbai is home to its largest tax-paying population seems to be no concern for the powers-that-be.

All through this horrific Thursday, while the city held its collective breath,
…while an unknown number of citizens were held prisoner by a small bunch of AK47-toting, RDX-weilding terrorists,
…while firemen battled the flames atop the Taj dome
…while commandos walked into certain danger
…while the police stood vigil and supportive, with nothing more to shield them than their khaki uniforms
…while mediapersons hovered around every location that could potentially turn dangerous (and got shot at as well) trying to make some sense of what was happening
…while hundreds of civilians hovered around, desperate for some news of their loved ones trapped within

…..while Mumbai’s heart stopped beating, what did our leaders do?

They presented a ‘dignified, unified front’ by condescending to agree with each other on condemning these blasts.
They performed the supreme sacrifice of having to tolerate each other’s company in travelling together to the city for a brief trip to show their faces to a few hospitals.
And they gave a speech or two.

The bitterest irony for me was when, towards evening the media, obviously running short of things to say, started airing ads as well. Right after our Prime Minister’s (highly insipid and uninspiring) speech, we heard the strains of ‘Pappu can’t dance sala’ modified to a demand to vote. Vote for whom?

I don’t quite know how to end this yet. The end isn’t in sight as yet. Last heard, the sanitising operation is still on at the attacked location. My colleagues who left early seem to have gotten home safe. But rumours are still rife. And the city is still holding its breath. We need life support systems, not resilient spirit anymore.

I woke up to the news channels airing footage shot hours ago, of the MNS chief being escorted into the police van at Ratnagiri and a few fancy-looking maps showing blinking dots in the areas of Borivili, Andheri, Dadar and Worli.

Violence has erupted in parts of the city.

…the TV anchor informed me over my breakfast. And..

MNS workers have been protesting the arrest. This comes in the light of the weekend attack on the railway examination centers to protest under-representation of Maharashtrians in the test.

I was still yawning, glued to the television as I was. And then I snapped the set shut, got ready and left for work.

The roads were not empty. They were the way a civilised, metropolitan city’s roads should be. Vehicles running at least 2 feet from each other in parallel lanes, a few stray pedestrians crossing only during the traffic signals, short signal wait-times, no undue honking. My normal 45-minute commute took all of 20 minutes. Thank you Mr.Thackeray for giving us one day of normal commuting.

People came into work. But of course. No, I’m not going to go on about the resilient spirit of Mumbaikers, our courage, our bravery etc. I’m no braver than the next person. All I am, is practical. Between floods, riots, bandhs, public transport strikes, communal clashes, infrastructure breakdowns and politico arrests, I have a job to do. And every day brings a new reason to not go to work. Yet, we do. That’s not courage, it’s just acceptance of the way things are.

From the last time this happened, I figured the media was just creating a hullaballoo as usual. No one who goes out in this city everyday really believes the news channels anymore (and certainly not a certain Dilli-based channel which thinks that Mumbai starts and ends at Churchgate and that Tardeo and Juhu are far-flung railway stations). Sure enough, come evening and I had a smooth commute back home as well. No, I did not spot any blood on the streets, no slapped-around taxi drivers, I did not get pelted with stones and the city seemed no scarder than usual.

If anything, the highlights of the day were how people chose to deal with the chaos. My Little Lord received the following email from HR:

Dear All

Due Unstable environment with regards to Raj Thackeray arrest, management has decided that all associates can leave by 4.00pm.

With Warm Regards,
HR Manager

Tue, Oct 21, 2008 at 4:11 PM

My colleagues were far more prompt and shot off the following (very convincing) mail:

There is a slight issue here at the Mumbai office. Due to some political issues there is absolute civil unrest and the city is at the brink of riots breaking out. The team will need to rush home. Im not sure if we’d be able to make it to the call today.

* So I’m jaded and cynical. Go read the full story here.

You would think that they are talking about entry points into the city, or the number of trash cans available where bombs could be left behind or some such thing. However to my dismay the article states

There are an estimated 15,000 wi-fi networks in the city that are vulnerable to terrorists like the ones who used the wi-fi networks of an American businessman and an entrepreneur couple from Chembur to send e-mails to various media companies minutes before the serial blasts in Ahmedabad on July 26 and a little after the first of five bombs exploded in Delhi on Saturday evening.

Agreed that open access wi-fi points is a safety breach, but shouldnt the government be busy in making sure the terrorists never get here in the first place. This sending of emails before blasts has been a recent phenomenon. If we clamp down on the access points, the terrorists will still set up bombs, but not email us about it, hence making them so much more difficult to trace.

As much as open access wifi is an issue in the "war against terror" it should be way down on the priority list.

“Khabardaar, Marathila hath laval tar…” roars Bal Thackeray in his editorial in the Shiv Sena mouthpiece Saamna today.

Thackeray warns all Sena corporators to be very particular about speaking in Marathi and said he would not be lenient with people who do not.

“We will not tolerate any language other than Marathi in the BMC,” said Thackeray.

His statement comes a week after Congress corporator and leader of the Opposition in the BMC, Rajhans Singh’s proposal.

‘If you are a lion, we are tigers’

I know this has been a touchy topic since the last couple of weeks. Trust me I have no qualms about retaining the Maharashtrian roots and culture and preference opportunities and all that. After all you definetly need to get more opportunities at your own home land otherwise were else will u get. If Gujjus can promote their Gujju brethrens with joint family venture businesses and Marawaris can stick to their Marwari brethrens to set up numerous baniye ka dukaan. So why cant Marathi’s have more opportunities at their very own land? But what I do not support or agree with is the approach of the toothless tiger and his cubs addressing this issue.

Frankly speaking Thackeray Sr, who is nicknamed as the toothless tiger is simply just one. And with such comments in his newspapers its just like the old guy giving a couple of grunt and feeble roars to let the other know that after all he is a tiger, doesn’t matter that fact that he is toothless and useless. This also goes for his cub Raj Thackeray too.

Further Thackeray in his editorial suggests that Hindi-speaking people visit the South first before coming to Mumbai because that’s how they would realise that people were very particular about their mother tongue. ANd refer to Karunanidhi government in Tamil Nadu sent a circular to all schools, two days ago, to make Tamil compulsory from Std I.

Duh-uh why cant we press on that subject here more rather than giving all fart and no shit threats.

Instead the guy should be aggressively fighting to revive the Marathi culture, to increase the quota for Maharashtrians in government jobs, school admissions etc. My 2 cents to the toothless tiger: Its high time u take a break from polit6ics and go back sketching cartoons which were more effective in conveying messages to the society.

P.S Now let me calrify again that I have nothing against Marathis and the idea of them getting more oppurtunites. But I hate Thackeray’s idealogyies and approach towards the issue.

*MNS chief to be arrested.*

and

*Raj Thackeray may be arrested.*

Viewers are also advised to be cautious since the city is on tenter-hooks, anticipating protests from his supporters. Well, we’ve been waiting for the axe to fall for a week now. Had this been pulled too long, we may as well have been bloody witnesses to protests against inaction.

It’s nearing five now and there’s no telling whether the roads now will fill up with angry protesters, violent mobs or petrified citizens on their way back.

The one thing I’m thinking now is – do the paranoid anti-terrorism campaigning superpowers know this feeling? Perhaps not – constant unease doesn’t make the same headlines that sporadic terror does.

The auto-rickshawalla who ferried me today interrupted my morning reverie with

Why are the shops not open yet? Has something happened in the night?

Of course he was from Uttar Pradesh, an uttar bharatiya, probably the one group that’s even more terrorized by organized politics than the Muslim community right now.

Congratulations, Mr.Thackeray, you’ve guaranteed yourself top-of-mind recall in the Mumbai mind for awhile to come. Uh, until someone else decides to play Big Bully in the Island Playground, that is.

There is no larger melting pot than Mumbai and Biharis rub shoulders on the local trains with Gujjubhais. South Indians (or as we love to call them all….Madrasis)jostle with Punjabis for the same square inch of pavement, to walk, to work and what not.

Migrants over centuries built this city, and that is the crux of this nice article by Bachi Karkaria in the TOI.

More than any other metropolis, Mumbai is native-neutral, whatever the Shiv Sena may like to project. Migration is a continuous-process industry here, and the city would be non-existent without migrants. This is exactly the opposite of the pattern in Chennai and Kolkata, places firmly rooted in their mono-chauvinism.

……Yet, contrary to Jug Suraiya’s premise, this does not make for a disparate anonymity where you can get away with murder or molestation. Quite the opposite. You learn to adapt, and live in the togetherness of strangers. In fact, communal angularities have full rein in the company of your own kind. Outside it, it is imperative that you emery them down. This is why the Goan makes good outside Goa;, the Bengali does better outside the stifling cultural terrorism of Kolkata; the Punjabi is so much quieter outside Delhi. As a Parsi, I could have claimed Mumbai as my patrimony, but I was a migrant too from the communal outpost of Kolkata, and the first thing that struck me was that the resident of the baugs and colonies was almost a different species from the Parsis back home.

Continue reading the entire article here.