timely escape

the latest lead stories of tehelka cover the dangers of radiation from cell phone signal towers.
delhi was the first city analysed and then bombay.

one of the most dangerous spots in bombay is prabhadevi/shiv sena bhavan, our residence for over 3 years.
makes me wonder if our move was more a timely escape...

cycling solution in thane

just after my scathing post on transport mayhem in urban india, i stumble across this timely recreation of the Paris velib bicycle solution in thane - FreMo.
short for freedom to move, it will, hopefully, give the city-folk required breathing space.

my cynicism will point out to the muggy weather and monsoons as reasons why the thanekar will dump this idea.

but keeping that aside, best wishes to the team and CEO, V Ramesh at FreMo.
inspiring effort at a much needed time.

THE bunch of girls

in nov/dec 2002, i entered into jari mari in kurla west, mumbai.
i was accompanying a resolute young lady, neha, into the girls' school she was managing.
that day was a life-changer.
i was entering Sahyog Girls' School - The School Without Walls.
the community-based school that aimed to re-school adolescent girls who had dropped out of formal school.

i walked into a computer-center (masquerading as a classroom) to meet the 4 teachers.
4 real dynamo women. raging with determination to make a difference and high ownership of the school. my life was changed from then on.
i was going to teach them english, but in reality, i became their student.
this once-a-week interaction with them over a year allowed me to into their lives and their school.

simultaneously, from dec 2002 to april 2003, i taught a group of girls appearing for their Std 10 NIOS exams.
the subject was Maths.
the medium of instruction was Hindi.
time available was 4 hours every saturday.

daunting as it seems now, i was in my late 20s then and was still blessed with energy and a boyish eagerness.
i went about the task with gusto and was certain that a few of the girls will make it through (at least 1 in 3).
talk about misguided enthusiasm and forecast accuracy. 100% tanked and by a significant margin. devastated as i was, the girls did not seem overly affected by the decimation. they were far more balanced than i was over how things had turned out!
neha, being the sensible analyst, re-calibrated my thinking into proper perspective, "look here. till you started teaching, maths scared the dupattas off them. but they have managed to overcome that fear, take the exam with confidence and deal with the failure with reasonable equanimity. is this not a significant achievement?"

in these 9 years, i have drawn massive inspiration from the girls.
in these 9 years, Sahyog has almost made itself redundant, i.e., within a decade, most adolescent girls in that community are continuing in formal school; reversing/correcting the earlier drop out trend.
claiming only a small part of the credit for this transformation, Sahyog's teachers, alumni and graduates have fuelled the desire and ambition in the girls to inspire them to continue their education, overcoming parental and other opposition.

Sahyog has won the Edelgive Social Innovation Honours 2010 award for the education category.

this post should have been written several years ago.
the awards have triggered this sub-conscious decadal story.

neha, the teachers, the alumni, the students.
THE bunch of girls.

salaam bombay

i never got around to being graceful to the city of my youth as i left its boundaries.
i came in june 1998 and left on jan 2010. from age 24 years to age 35 years.
the most energetic part of my life was spent in the in the city which perhaps will be more home than any other city in the world.

its importance in my life is fairly obvious considering that it is the most common tag in my over 500 posts.
73 posts tagged bombay scores over all the other major themes covered here.

a few top items of the city that i am thankful for:
1. fully understanding the importance of public transport...example
2. making me to be a secular thinker...example
3. sharpening my bird's eye viewing ability....example
4. start my journey in understanding linguistics...example
5. making an experimenter out of me..example

salaam bombay/mumbai/bambai. it will be top in my list of heroes.

moving

jan 1, 2010 will see my exit from mumbai and city-life.
wife and I are moving bag and baggage to point return.

the plan to to simplify life and live self-sustainably in synchrony with nature.

we will spend jan 2010 in acclimatising ourselves with the changed specs of life and settle down at PR by the end of the month.

shall continue writing here at Fun, yeah , but likely that the tenor and content will change considerably as it will be a chronicle of travails on the farm and related events.
it will be a challenge to stay out of the invasive reach of media (which i have enjoyed).

hope to see you all here and there :-)
happy new year and this also happens to be my 500th post.
decent going.

where our taxes go - 5

Rs 1.5 crores to transplant 100 trees from Andhra to Mumbai.

that is Rs 1,50,000 per tree.

this is treeson.

earlier WOTGOs.

cyclooney city

that is mumbai - which gets an average of 2500 mm of rain in the 3 monsoon months.
totally freaky weather over the last 2 days. raining since 10th Nov around noon time (IST).
today was cyclone alert day.
phyan was supposed to hit in and around the city. and some marginal rain happened today.

the moment the alert sounded, almost as if to cook a snook, it cleared up.
nothing, nada, zip, zero since 2 PM today (11th Nov).
schools, offices all shutdown.
bloody waste of time and stuff.

this is not maximum city, post 26/7/2005, this is 'i-want-my-mum" city.

clarification - the looneys are not the civic admin (in this case), but the general junta and media. with whatever available info, the govt called it correctly putting safety first.
but the aam-junta, fuelled my media frenzy, has just lost their marbles.

king long

warped minds will warp their minds over this title.
king long is a famous name in mumbai as they have invaded the city over the last 2 years like no one.

ok, ok...
the fleet of the new AC buses used by BEST (as part of the Bus Rapid Transit System-BRTS) and of late by MSRTC (mumbai pune route) is king long buses. (on the mumbai-pune AC bus route aka Volvo, the king longs are improving their market share)


pic courtesy: Sharmeen Sahibole

these chinese-make buses are an attempt to woo the car-based travellers from the suburbs to the town-side. and from the initial looks of it, they are making an attempt.
currently BEST operates 10 routes.
we have taken 2 of them.
they are obviously very comfortable and all that. and tickets are in the range of Rs 15 (min) - 100 (max). pretty reasonable.

but if you are in a taxi/auto/2-wheeler and are behind the king longs, the heat/noise from the AC and engine is quite unbearable.

take it the next time you are in the city.

kannamwar nagar

eastern express highway starts from sion and snakes its way through the central suburbs of mumbai till thane where it morphs into NH 3.
for its entire stretch post ghatkopar, it runs past some of the greenest parts of mumbai, namely the mangroves on the eastern seafront.
there is just one exception to this unbroken vista.
and that small township is kannamwar nagar, vikhroli east.
after seeing its name on several BEST buses over the last many years, i got a chance to visit this place to attend a wedding.
while it does not look any different than any other place, if one changes the viewing perspective, kannamwar nagar is a special place.
here is a bird's view from a long way up. the yellow line is the EEH and the small triangle on its right in the center of the image is kannamwar nagar.



coming in closer, the triangle takes on a defined form.


"what's so special?", you may ask.
the layout of this township is now visible below in a closer zoom and "doesn't it look pretty?". almost like a fluid flowing around a circular object.



so, on my last flight, i looked out while landing and could identify this beautiful location. it is a million times more beautiful than the above images.

attacking trains - perspectives

big time drama happened today in WB on the Rajdhani express being taken over/hijacked by naxals/maoists, etc.
all ended well and no one was hurt and so on.
i agree that it is very troublesome and stressful and threatening (as passengers, as train Ops Research people, law enforcement people, etc).

but using the trains as a protest mechanism, these happen in mumbai quite frequently,
1. Feb 8, 2009 in Borivali.
2. Sep 2, 2009 in Nallasopara.

the latest one is planned and the mumbai one's are spontaneous.
but net net, the frustrations of the people result in violent behaviour.

of course, violence cannot be justified from any angle.
but i am just bringing together 'similar' incidents with different 'perspectives'.

p.s. - hey protesters, leave the trains alone

maha mess

the vidhan sabha election results are out.
maharashtra re-elects the Cong-NCP alliance into power.

my hopes have been powdered, but i had expected these results.

so here is a nice good bye to maharashtra.
the next 5 years will be destructive, if their previous 10 is any indication.

choices, tough ones

the LS elections just passed 5 months ago.
i did a prediction and fared miserably.

the maharashtra state elections are around the corner. on oct 13th 2009.
plans to boost voting percentage by shutting down the city is afoot.

against all that is me, i would prefer that the shiv sena-bjp combination comes to power as against the congress-ncp.
kumar ketkar's interview (loksatta editor) is a good read.
so is tvr shenoy's general analysis.
sainath has made it amply clear about how the farmers have suffered.

as much as i cant stand the right wing-hindutva chanting saffron combine, the cong-NCP have raped and plundered and pillaged maharashtra for the last 10 years.... a la ghazni, ghori et al.

so am hoping (not predicting) that ss-bjp come to power (sigh).

roy, millworkers et al

reading arundhati roy's interview in the TOI of OCt 2nd, we decided to hear her out as she was going to address the Mumbai Girni Kamgaar Sangharsh Samiti's (मुंबई गिर्नी कामगार संघर्ष समिति) 20th anniversary.

astute followers of this blog will immediately see that she has raised the issues covered in my post of Oct 1 - impending civil war.
even astuter followers of this blog will also recall my 'support' to the millworkers - mills to high street - phoenix from the ashes.

i like roy (even though i have not read her claim to fame - Booker prize winning - the God of Small Things) as i think her role is to conflate the multiple struggles going on across the country and bring each of these struggles to each others' notice.
another of my favourites - ramachandra guha - has had a slugfest with roy in 2000-01. i am inclined to side with roy on this one.

coming back to the event...
roy spoke sparingly (her hindi is woeful for someone who has spent years in the hinterlands) in a full blown marathi meeting, recalling points mentioned in the TOI interview.
also present was nikhil wagle - present editor of IBN Lokmat (the 24 hours Marathi news channel) and pushpa bhave.

happy weekend reading.

city farming workshop

this sunday, we are attending a city farming workshop.
the natueco city famring blog should become an important part of the mumbai webspace. and of course, the concept should become an important part of the mumbai space.

this mail which i got yesterday, assures me that it will be a wonderful workshop:

We would also like to reduce garbage generated at the premises and so request you to carry your own plate, a glass and a spoon for breakfast/lunch and herbal tea. MNP (Maharashtra nature Park, Dharavi) has the facility for you to be able to wash these. Please also carry your own drinking water so as to avoid "buying' the same.

Kindly bring a notepad and pen for taking notes, we will be providing you our booklet on natueco farming.You may also need napkin post the hands-on session.

this is a lesson to carry our own things wherever we go. simple and elegant.

fasting

yesterday (friday 18th sept 2009) was alvida jumma (अलविदा जुम्मा).
it is the last friday in the holy month on ramzan.
it is a very special day as it also indicates that Id-ul-fitr (ramzan-id) is around the corner.

on the suggestion of one of my friends, i kept a fast (रोज़ा) from dawn to dusk.
this was my first time ever. to stay over 14 hours without food was going to be quite manageable, but i was not sure about staying thirsty for the same time. it goes against my standard 2-3 liters of water/day.
so i decided to stay in the office the whole day (in air-conditioned environments) so as to prevent loss of water by sweating.
so i had a full stomach of water and a cup of coffee in the morning and that lasted me through the day quite well.
i could observe that life and time seemed to have slowed down. i kept looking at the time more frequently than before.

the breaking of the fast (रोज़ा खोलना) aka Iftaar (इफ्तार) is a pretty process.
we had gone shopping to Md Ali Road, which is a remarkable place most of the year, but during Ramzan, it is just moves up many notches.
if you can stand crowds (mumbai trains its citizens well in this regard), this is a must see. especially on alvida jumma.

i am considering fasting right through ramzan next year. but that's 11 months away.

now i wait for Id.

mumbai phrases 3 - Boomaboom

means to lambast/blast away and is mainly used in a negative context.

तू कैको मेरे पर बूमाबूम हो रहा है?
why the hell are you blasting me?

and such like...

earlier- mumbai phrases 1 and mumbai phrases 2.

chapathi-wali bai

this was a new one for me.
i am told that this phenomenon is quite de-rigeur in thane and other places.
the chapathi-wali bai (CWB).
a maid to exclusively make chapathis for the family meals!!

the classic kam-wali bai is one who does the regular house work is an ubiquitous presence in most upper middle class families.

but the CWB is quite a specialisation among the working class bais.
remarkable... this city is.

water supply - mumbai

i grew up in madras for around 22 years, a water scarce city. pumping water was a daily affair.
the last 10 years, i have been in bombay, a water surplus city. bombay residents are 'water wastrels' - not only in comparison with madras, but even absolutely.

here is a great diagram which explains bombay's water supply.
courtesy hindustan times july 14th mumbai edition

the current situation is certainly unsustainable - getting water from 100+ kms away.
am sure that the locals there are cursing us - the city dwellers.

26 july - 4 years ago

vitalstatistix's fear were founded (is this opposite of unfounded?) on this floody day.

so what did i do on this day?

at abouts 200PM, abodh and i were watching the downpour from just outside of our office.
it was a spectacular sight.
the intensity of the rain was truly spell-binding.

what caught my attention was the water overflowing from the roof-top drain channels (i.e., the water flowing down the roof, is trapped in a channel from which many drain-pipes take it to the drain.
this meant that the water was collecting into the channel much too faster compared top the draining rate.
has never seen that before. knew that this did not bode well for the city.

half an hour of this downpour, i advised all colleagues to head home.
i had then decided to stay put until i was sure that the trains would run .
many heeded my advice and headed out, but came back in a jiffy as the entire exit/main road was in knee deep water.

in the meanwhile, a 'temporary' false ceiling roof-tile had broken and water started pouring into the office.
30 mins of patch up and clean up.

we then assembled all the telephones we had (MTNL, Airtel, BPL, Orange, Tata Indicom) and started calling colleagues and friends and community contacts to take stock.
within no time, except for the MTNL landline, all other systems shutdown.
and the suburban rail system had ground to a halt.

many of my colleagues had to get home to family, etc and they headed (plodded/waded) out.
most of them had a lot of intersting stories to share the next week.

finally, we were 6 of us who stayed back in the office.
then the fun started.
the office complex in which our office is situated had a canteen. and thankfully, ample emergency rations to feed the many people who were stuck at work.
we were treated to a sumptuous snack at 630PM and a hot dinner at 830PM.

sporadic 'we are safe' messages trickled in. not that we were in any position to do anmy kind of rescue act.
one of us had a serious flooding situation at his home, but there was no chance in hell he was going to be able to reach there.

we stayed dry and slept at office.
next day dawned and we did a little shopping for tea and bread.
the situation all across was still bad and getting out of office was not an option at all.
around 10AM, we got a surprise visitor.
taking pity on our 'poor' state, a colleague sent food and 10 DVDs!!
we set up the LCD projector and did a mini movie marathon.
serious.

by the evening, things had eased up and trains had started running and by 6 PM on the 27th, we exited after a 32 hour office stay in.

the city was jack-hammered.
the time we spent in office, thousands spent trapped, exposed to the might of the rain-gods.

modakam at madhavashram uphar gruh

madhavashram at girgaum is a lodging hotel which serves simple meals (only dinners).
for over 100 years, this eatery (grade 2 as per the Municipal Corporation of Greater Mumbai - Health Dept) has retained its original design of its founding fathers (check the above link in detail).

tagging along with abodh of straying around, we partook of their special fare last week on the occassion of sankasthi chathurti.

the modakams are legendary and they indeed are divine. the whole meal was just lip smacking.

the good news is that sankasthi chathurti comes every month and i am planning to make this a monthly affair.
yummy.