The Idea-smithy

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. (more…)

Jeffrey Archer on Landmark tour!

..proclaims a hoarding on Andheri Link Road a few feet before Infiniti Mall which houses the Landmark store. The lower two floors look fairly sane, I think to myself as far as weekdays go. Even the second floor which looms into sight as the escalator rides up looks remarkably normal. Then I notice the mountain of bags lying at the entrance. And I’m stopped by the polite but firm female guard who shakes her head almost sorrowfully and tells me that I cannot carry my battered copy of As the Crow Flies in.

I push my way past the jewelery counter, the New Releases rack and past the music section. Voila!! What’s a celebrity without the crowd? Archer has succeeded in drawing the mob to the store on a weekday. It’s so crowded that people are stepping on each other’s toes even among the magazines racks that signal the start of that heaven that is Landmark’s book section.

I slither through the crowd in a manner perfected by years of Mumbai train travel and end up right at the back, smushed up against Movies while Jeffrey Archer regales a crowd from a stage in what is otherwise the aisle between Maps and Language.

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The last fifteen days of summer!! Already the dark clouds have started gathering in the sky, heralding the onset of monsoon…very soon. *Sigh* Three months of muddy feet, browned clothes, greasy hair and the sniffles. The whole country thinks that rains are romantic and looks forward to the dark clouds with eagerness; I don’t. This isn’t a pretty city and it gets uglier in the rains. Trains stop, traffic stalls, roads flood and everyone’s passing colds to each other. Moreover it reminds me of that miserable time heralding the start of a new school year right after a delightful vacation. ‘Back to the grind’ is the overwhelming feeling I have right through Mumbai’s monsoon.

But today the sun shines and on Random Shuffle, I drift into the streams of

Here comes the sun, here comes the sun, and I say it’s all right

Little darling, the smiles returning to the faces
Little darling, it seems like years since it’s been here
Here comes the sun, here comes the sun and I say it’s all right

What spells summer better than aamras? Succulent golden-yellow mangoes with their insides scooped out and beaten to smooth consistency. Sweet, so sweet that you can put the sugar-can away.

Happy Mother’s Day to my maddening, delightful, one-and-only mom!

(Click on thumbnail to see the comic)

More idea-toons!

I’m not usually inclined to writing movie reviews, given I tried it on one of my other blogs and failed miserably to write anything interesting. But I just had to put my thoughts down on this just to remember the funny idea if not the movie.

Seen The Forbidden Kingdom as yet? Or have Iron Man, Khuda ke Liye and Race overwhelmed the once raging appetite for Kung-fu flicks. Speaking of which, where have all the Kung-fu lovers gone? Times were when Star Movies ran a series called Friday Fury telecasting the grand works of Bruce Lee and Jackie Chan. Now that’s been reduced to a once-in-a-couple-of-years Chan release or (horror of horrors) dubbed versions on Filmy.

Cadet Larvell Jones of Police Academy was an expert at imitating all sorts of noises and one of the series had him do a routine of the typical Hollywood-dubbed Chopsuey flick, delivering chop-chops and complete with un-lip-synced psuedo-Eastern wisdom like,

The snake does not bend its neck. The mongoose will still catch it!

(….or something like that)
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I stopped by this pavement stall last evening. It has been…oh, so very long..since I visited this place. Getting to be a real book-snob, are we, patronizing only the big bookstores? Yet, the bookseller recognized me in trice and his eyes bore no rebuke.

There’s one at every corner, if you know where to look and I’ve given away a few of my secrets before. This is (or used to be) one of my favorite haunts before convenience and credit cards took over.

From the evergreen Sidney Sheldons, John Grishams and Jeffrey Archers to the ubiquitous management books, this place still holds its charm. It’s hard to supress that innate sense of superiority in pulling out a book and placing it in the ‘right’ stack along with others in the genre. So pop fiction to the sides, classics in the middle, bestsellers on top. Then realisation strikes that the dynamics of cataloguing work differently in a street-stall.
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On February 18, a fifteen-year old British tourist called Scarlette Keeling was found dead on Anjuna beach, Goa. Death by drowning was the initial statement by the police. Scarlette’s mother, Fiona Mackeown pressed for furthur investigation, pointing out the bruises on the girl’s body as an indication of rape and murder. As the media and police dug deeper into the case, new facts came in light in the form of drugs and sex trade.

Scarlette came to Goa on vacation with her siblings, mother and mother’s partner. Her family decided to travel furthur to Karnataka while Scarlette stayed back. Her mother said that she had left her daughter in the care of 25-year-old Julio Lobo, a local tour guide. The ill-fated Scarlette then spiralled into a web of drugs, alcohol and sex with the people she met while working in the bar.

The most recent news on the case is that the police has confessions from the prime suspects, Placido Carvalho and Samson D’souza. Both have been booked for murder and rape.

The police and the media battle it out over whether it was drug overdose and drowning or murder that killed Scarlett. Goa comes under scanner, its image of an sunny, beach paradise ripped off to reveal its murky sex-drugs-crime underbelly. And, Fiona Mackeown’s personal life gets dug up and scrutinized in detail. All in a bid to answer the hanging question of

Who’s responsible?

~o~o~o~o~o~o~o~o~o~o~o~

Remember Adnan Patrawala? The sixteen-year old who unwittingly became the face of Orkut’s dark side?
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I met him through some common friends on the same day India won the 20/20 and the roads were thronged with pre-Ganesh Chaturti celebrators. Spirits were high, the jokes were flying and conversations happened easily. The next time I heard from him was a couple of days later asking if I’d like to join them on a drive to Manori to watch the full moon.

In the middle of the night in the middle of the week? Nuts, I don’t have the energy you kids do!

I took a rain-check and moped at home thinking of what an impractical idea it was and what a brilliant idea it was.

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This occurred to me when I was talking to a friend this week about breaking up. There is so much of literature available on love - how to find it, how to handle it, how to make it happen, how to make it last. But what about the sometimes inevitable - loss of love? There must be a reason that this post remains one of my most popular ones to date.

We are born with a capacity to love. But breaking up and letting go is a learned act…a lesson that comes with a lot of pain. While I can’t find a way to make that experience any less painful, for those of you who face it, maybe this will make it easier to deal with.
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Long, bumpy rides in Mumbai’s bylanes bring you face to face with some terribly amusing sights.

Pssst….for those of you who can’t read in the Mumbai smog, it says,

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