The Idea-smithy

In a city that loves designers, it is always good to go back to the philosophy of raste ka maal saste mein! Take a walk down the street with me while I poke into the tinsel of GlamourTown.

Roti (food), kapda (clothing) aur makan (shelter)…so the dictat goes. Roti (and also naan, idli, dosa, pizza, pasta and pita) is available in an appetizing variety while the glitz and glamour of teeny-weeny kapdas dazzle us. But what of makan? Oh well….life is always something short of perfect. For now, we settle for ramming our fresh fruit purchases in with the bling-thing that we call an LBD (Little Bright Dress!)

This is one of the original ‘moll’s that stroked our wallets long before Atria, CrossRoad, R Mall and In Orbit. Set in the heart of a vegetable/fruit market, it always amuses me to see the rasta-Mumbai rub shoulders with wannabe cool.

But then beauty is always a booming business in showtown. Bangles, bracelets, armlets, necklaces, chains, pendants, rings, hoops, studs, navel-rings, lower-lip piercings, clips, bands, scrunchies, hair grips, henna tattoos…

Any teenager in the city will tell you that the coolest stuff is available off the streets. Who wants to fork out all that money for stuff the whole city is wearing when you can pick up one-of-a-kind trinkets at the numerous tables at every street corner? Self-confessed junk jewellery junkie that I am, I’ve often ended up buying clothes to match stuff that I picked off the roadside stalls!

And for the more intellectually inclined, the streets have something for you as well! For those of us who grew up with bookish tastes, this is an ode to those days of splashing preciously saved pocket-money on recycled and reprinted books. The wonderful (or perhaps not..) thing is that everything is a business in this city and every street-hawker, a master salesman. They may not have studied beyond class 5 but they’ll know the ‘latest, ekdum fast-moving’ authors, related genres and books of interest.

And finally, Mumbai even promises you a trip to the moon and back!!! Don’t you believe me?

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~O~O~ I call myself a chronic thinker. A few centuries ago, I’d have been called a Thinker. Or burnt at stake for being a witch. My degree is my passport to the world of respectability. I moonlight as a troubled poet, a warrior princess and a closet sorceress. I am all of these and yet none of them is all of me. All I was born to be really, was a story-teller. Scheherazade, Galelio, Cleopatra and Salvador have passed through. This time round, just call me IdeaSmith. Read more ideas

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