Did anyone get stuck in a gargantuan traffic jam in Vile Parle/ Andheri/ Jogeshwari/ Malad earlier this week? Yes, yes, I know that’s roz ka jhamela in aamchi Mumbai. But this was like the baap of all traffic snarls. Your vella bloggy-reporter takes you straight to the scene of the crime…errr, traffic jam.

In that dirty, dingy gulli called Andheri subway, an autowalla seemed to have been trying some stunts. Okay, not auto but what do you call those auto-looking things that carry goods instead of passengers? Going by the way the autowallas drive, I don’t think they know the difference but anyway…

This vehicle was stuck in the most extraordinary position of all - nose up in the air and forehead (!) caught in the roof of the subway. A couple of workers were perched up there hammering away in a bid to get it unstuck. Wheels up in the air, my first thought was,

Was that an auto-wheelie gone wrong??

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Our very own rollicking MB Mumbai author, Ideasmith was recently featured in a Hindustan Times special on Women Bloggers.

Click here to see the full image and read the text.

Way to go Ideasmith. You rock baby !!

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Am sure all of you who are reading this have seen the overly stressed out Nikita Mehta with her big belly running around the TV screens. I wonder what was the judge thinking while refusing aborting a 26-week fetus with a serious heart defect after rejecting the mother’s plea to terminate the pregnancy in a case torn between trauma and ethical issues. Guess what this silly decision is going cost the couple their entire life of trips to the hospitals, medical bills, extra efforts to generate money and the list goes on.
Haven’t the court thought about the aftermath of this decision? If yes then have they offered any kind of medical assistance for the couple? If not then why not? Has the Indian court become so insensitive towards the public? If the laws can be tweaked for actors and politicians whose actions have cost zillions of rupees (Yes our blood and sweat which we pay as taxes) and many lives (Yes am hinting here) then why not for Nikita Mehta’s case?

In the end am sure that Nikita would want to take a double barrel gun and shoot the judge and then the rest who help him make this decision. Also the gov/ law have set a bad example with this incident. First it is not that we have hundreds of Nikita’s walking in every day asking for court’s help to abort a child. Secondly the one person who has faith in the laws and wanted to go about the right way has been bowled out. After this I don’t think that people will have any hopes of receiving the justice to any issue. The moral of the story is such incidents will make the people loose faith in law and justice. And more importantly its is high time for India to change/amend certain laws.

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Time out of office on a weekday is always fun. Even if you do have to get back to work eventually. It would be funner if the rest of the day was an unscheduled holiday, of course, but one makes do with what one gets.

So I find myself sauntering down a road that was probably desiged to be a nice, quiet side-street with colony gates opening into it but has metamorphosed instead. The road has grown up and now sees hourly traffic snarls, cars and cabs zooming and vrooming up and down and a bright neon multiplex thrusting itself in between the faded painted hoardings that came up about fifteen years ago (when the road was oh, about in its teens).

It’s scorching hot after a week of grey skies and incessant rain. Great, I left my sunglasses behind and carried my extra-heavy-duty rain protection gear instead, that’s making my otherwise ubercool bag bulge like a pillow. No matter I tell myself, in Matunga, nobody will mind.

No taxiwalla is willing to ferry me to the station and my stomach is starting to make itself (or its emptiness) felt so I pause, mid-traffic to think. If I were in Dadar, I’d pop in to sample some no-frills delicious Mahrashtrian cuisine. I spend a peaceful few seconds thinking about kokum sharbat, patra, shrikhand-puri and masale bath. The honking behind me jolts me out of my reverie so I rush on. Bandra and I would have stepped into any of the cafes, restaurants and hangouts I know so well. Town has its own delights. Even if Tea Center has ceased to function, there’s always Samrat where I’ve enjoyed many a solo lunch with the waiters dancing attendance. Yes, I know, I know that Gujjus don’t consider Samrat fare as ‘good food’ but like I said, one makes do with what one has.

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Gone are the days when you had to plan a spa treatment for yourself days in advance. Mumbai has a fast life , hence for Mumbaikars, shot lived pampering and relaxation techinques are far more appreciated. And MY FOOT is the brain child of My Foot, an international brand of holistic therapy specially suited to the modern lifestyle. Considering the fast paced life in Mumbai (as a matter of fact any mertropolitian citizen) are packed with loads of activites and that people dont have the time and money to go and spend in a Spa as frequently as required. For people like such My Foot is the fast food of Spa treatments.

Trust me its a bit high end for a middle class office goer to indulge in on a regular basis. But is worth the money, once in while. The ambience is absolutely relaxing and gives a feeling that you are on a high end Spa but hte noise outside the SPA pulls one back to reality. For more details go to www.heavenonearthindia.com

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Business is dry during wet monsoons because Mumbaikars prefer to stay at home, enjoy hot pakodas and sip milk tea. Monsoon sale is the carrot these days businessmen use to get people to come to mall despite the rains to shop hard. Here are a few pictures I took on a wet Friday evening in a mall near my home.

Look this guy has himself done some it of shopping :)

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If Metblogs is a city, hub.metblogs is the playground. We kept hearing from people that one of their favorite parts of Metblogs was meeting and interacting with readers and writers from other parts of the world, as well as getting requests for more ways that readers could be involved besides just posting comments. We thought about this for a while and decided that with a network like this, a giant community area where folks from all over the world could hang out, post photos and videos, talk with each other, form groups, play games, send messages, and do about a million other things was probably a pretty fun idea. The Hub is that.

If you have any tech ideas or suggestions join this group and speak up. See you on hub.metblogs!

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A big chuck of city’s college students opting to work in BPOs and call centers, life for them runs according to American timing in Indian soil. In an attempt to reach out to people who work in the BPO sector, Fame Cinemas, Malad, has started 7.30 am shows from this Friday. These early shows will be screened in three screens, each of which will show a different movie and will be priced at Rs 70.
So movies will not have to weekends only affair anymore for BPO guys.

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The words “second opinion” is synonymous with doctors. People will always tell you get a second opinion about major illnesses related to heart, brain, kidneys and whatnot.

However that does not come into play for “everyday” illnesses like cold, flu, malaria, etc. But from this report in the DNA, maybe its time it should

Your family physician’s, or the nearby general practitioner’s, inexperience could be as deadly as any life-threatening disease.

A recent study by a BMC panel of experts, which works to control malaria and looks into reasons causing malaria deaths in Mumbai, has come across some very disturbing figures. The Malaria Death Committee of BMC has found that of the 122 confirmed deaths caused by malaria in 2007, 68 happened because of wrong or late diagnosis by the treating general practitioners (GP).

“It means almost 60% of the malaria deaths last year could have been averted with timely treatment,” said Dr Kishor Hargouli, assistant health officer, surveillance, BMC.
This year, 19 people have succumbed to malaria. Last week, two malaria deaths were reported from a construction site in Parel. An investigation by BMC revealed that both patients had gone to the same general physician, who never even suspected that it could be malaria.

Its a difficult call to make. On the one hand most of us trust our family physician blindly. But on the other, if it means a matter of life and death, trust be damned.

What will you do the next time you need to visit a GP. Is a second opinion in order ?

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See anything interesting?

Look closer.

The funniest part is that this is the second one that I spotted within 20 minutes. I thought the earlier one was a mistake but two? Am I missing something?

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Apparently Bollywood has taken Karan Johar’s K3G movie caption “Its all abt loving your family” a tad bit seriously. And as a result every one wants to launch their brothers, sisters, kids, nieces, nephews, uncles, aunties and who all.

So last Friday we has 2 new comers whose movies were released. Harman has almost all of his friend (*wink wink * including gal friend Priyanka) pitching in for the mega budget film, unfortunately it was the biggest disaster for 2008 as far I am concerned for a couple of reasons:

• He looks like a clone of Hrithik, if not for his lack of height. He even sounds somewhat like him.
• Bollywood is not yet ready to produce ultimate sci-fi movies.
• He definitely could brush up his acting skills (may be a lot)
• The script was pathetically boring and senseless. Common which 23 year old guy looks up the sky and speaks to his swarg waasi mother. Grow up!
• Its creepy to have a pop singer speaking to a teddy bear look alike robot.
On the other hand I really did not have a lot of expectations from Jaane na Jaane Tu. A not so mega budget movie with the age old college love story. Nothing unusual, probably that’s what worked for Imran. Although a gamble, Aamir managed successfully to launch his nephew with a simple movie.

The platform of chocolate boy aka box next door has been vacant for sometime. If my memory serves right, it was Aamir aka the maamujaan himself a few years back then it was Aftab Shivdasani (for some time). Now I think the Imran has managed to bag the chocolate boy of Bollywood title quite at ease of course with the help of his maamujaan Aamir.

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I came across a great article (do not know the online source). It speaks about what Bombay was in the 1960’s. A lot of what is written I have heard about from my parents and grandparents. Bombay then was a less chaotic city than it is today.

Bombay & The Swinging Sixties

by STANLEY PINTO,
An old Bombay boy and night club pianist, describes the rocking times that the city was witness to in the 1960s.
A man called Chris Perry died in Mumbai a few weeks ago. The news didn’t send even the tiniest ripple out onto the turgid waters of this restless megalopolis. In its headlong rush into tomorrow, Mumbai has become a city uncaring of the yesterdays from which its today is cast; constantly moulting, constantly and unconcernedly shedding memories of times past.
Chris Perry is one such forgotten memory of the great jazz age of Mumbai that once was Bombay. Alongside Hecke KingdomIndia’s entertainment world in the 60s, 70s and 80s. I discovered this exciting world as a 16-year-old in 1959 when I ran into Dorothy Jones on Colaba Causeway. Dorothy was the pianist who accompanied all comers on the late great impressario Hamid Sayani’s Ovaltine Amateur Hour over Radio Ceylon, the FM radio of its time. Teetering on impossible stiletto heels, her red hair crowned by a magnificent tres chic turban, she enveloped me in a deliciously bosomy hug. Hello luv, how lovely to see you, do you still sing, how is your piano playing, you must come and see us at Berry’s, come to the jam session next Sunday morning. And she was gone in a cloudburst of Channel No. 5.

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The NYTimes has a long running feature called “36 Hours In….” where they feature different cities every week.

This week its our very own Mumbai

IT’S the Jazz Age again in Mumbai. The populous metropolis is bursting with stock-market money, a shimmering art scene has a growing global presence, and young people are exploiting their newfound freedoms in dim bars until the wee hours. Indeed, in the city’s more rarefied circles, Champagne is sipped every night and everyone knows everyone, darling. But large swaths of Mumbai, the former Bombay, remain immune to the homogeneity of global glamour.

Continue reading here.

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On the first week of June, Mumbai welcomed the monsoon of 2008. I watched it arrive, alone…which is probably the best way, with the rain.

The skies heralded the season of water.

And then I watched the drops paint the sidewalk a shiny, sheeny gloss of life. Read more

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Yes our GenX channel MTV did get a taste of their own medicine this Monday. The protest by some Sikhs was against a poster for the On The Job show, which allegedly portrayed a member of their community in an offensive manner.

MTV was promoting the show with the tagline ‘Jobs your parents won’t understand,’ which showed a girl from their community working as a masseur and her father suddenly discovering her new profession.

Ironically, a masseur is not among the careers profiled by the channel on the show.

The protestors managed to trash the office and destroy 3 plazma tvs, each approximately costa 65000/- rupees

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