Game-For-Life?

So, well, I’ve been to all the Taj properties in Mumbai and this one too, but never bothered to try out the Deli here. Finally did a working lunch here, and found out how the standards do not match Taj anywhere else.
The nice tucked away location which many people don’t know about, gets you interested. you do have a choice of being seated inside or outside, and outside it is for us. The Waiter takes an amusing amount of time to come and take an order, and then acts fidgety as if not knowing what to do next there
Over to the food. They do know how to make very good Orange Juice, fresh and not canned! They also know how to make good scrambled eggs I say. So much for breakfast. At Lunchtime, we went about with some Pasta . My regular Arabiatta sauce in Penne Pasta with Ham. Tasted lovely here They’d of course made a liberal helping of herbs in it.
I say I like the place, except that the service is not Taj quality. Just putting up a few people in waistband coats does not make them Taj hospitality. They got to be much better than that! Hence, I take back 1 star and give them just 3 on 5!!

PS: Check out more Mumbai reviews by me at Burrp!

I am at least a regular at the Mumbai and Delhi airports by virtue of travelling between these 2 locations or travelling to other locations from these bases. The privatisation of both the Airports happened about the same time(till a few years ago, these busiest airports of India were run by the Airports Authority of India, a government body). And then i heaved a sigh of relief, that at least the long hours i spend at these 2 airports will now be well serviced.

Too bad then,some hopes have been dashed. i guess the mumbai airport developers have done a far better job of doing up the facilities and are working godspeed to turn around the airport. Most of their efforts are showing results. Lesser queues, smaler waiting times, better and cleaner airports, better counters, smoother checkins and the works. The lounges at the domestic as well as at the international airport have been made spacious and they don’t seem to be ever peaked out in my past 2 to 3 years of getting there.

However, delhi is not so great i tell you. the queues at the airport are never small, and the whole darn place has more “pillars ” coming up rather than checkin counters. They are taking too longdoing things and i am thoroughly dissatisfied with my past experiences with them. They have a gem of a property there looking down upon the tarmac. Alas then, it always looks as if i walked into a trashcan. The last time i wasthere, the indian premier league tournament was on, and the whole of a cricket team was seated there with some sitting in each others laps. Now someone go there and do something, of pls ask jet airways to give me access to their business class lunge even when i fly economy

P.S.: Posted from the clipper lounge at the mezzanine floor of terminal2 of mumbai airport, using my communicator e90.

ok, so for the first time in eight months i am back on the blogosphere. It is 1045 pm approx and I just landed up in the queue to meet Lalbaghcha Raja, the most famous of the Ganpati mandals in Mumbai.

on my way here, i realised a few humbling things in life. The most queer of them forms the caption of this blogpost… Ganpati season is when mumbai meets. I’ve been in this city of Mumbai about four years now, and i’ve seen this year on year and slowly becoming a part of it..in ganpati season, mumbai turns into one big harmonious community (it always was, but this part of the year…it shows). Everyone has a ganpati bappa at their home or at someone close to their’s home. People visit each other, perhaps more than they do in the diwali season, and they all make merry. Its a feast, with mumbai roaring to the auspiscious chants of “Ganpati bappa Morya”…

i walked about 1/2 an hour from the Lower Parel station to join at the end of the queue, and will spend most of the night here. And there are several ahead of me, waiting it out for the entire night just to worship the God. So the rich and poor all come together here….thats the second realisation over the years, that Ganpati bappa is a great equaliser. Everyone waits to meet him here and greet him, no exceptions

The third realisation is the economic aspect of the festivity. I am right now standing at perhaps one of the biggest and most famous pandals in mumbai. A newspaper trivia said that there were perhaps more than 1500 pandals in the city itself. All over maharashtra look around, and you’d perhaps see much more of them. So this is seasonal income for the artisans, the florists, the electricians, the security industry and so on and so forth. Let me try and figure out a number from somewhere and add that for your reference here later…but you do realise that by the grace of Ganesha, the resident god of Mumbai, there is a whole festive economy which feeds millions not just that, overnight, there turn up hundreds of roadside food and beverage stalls selling everything from the famour Vada pao to the filling Pav Bhaji to tonnes of other gastronomic delights. All that, to ensure while you are Queing up to meet the Gods, you are tanked up to see through the day.

Seeing the faith in Lord Ganesha, one thing i am convinced with is that India is a land of believers, where faith is not lost. If we could all combine our faith into one big melting pot and concentrate on making ‘India Shining’ well, is a different thought altogether.

Here is three cheers to the spirit of Mumbai…”Ganpati bappa morya, mangal murti morya…agley varshi jaldi aaaaaa”

PS: The ardous task of getting to see the God was fulfilled at about 9 in the morning when I finally got access to the main area right in front of the idol for a minute. It was gigantic, and smilin at you. The wait was worth it…… this post is not capitalised too much or may have spelling errors, but it was posted from my e90 … so excuse the same!

Its sad to come back to blogging with a long blog entry like this, but then, could not help it as some politicos piss me off no ends!

The one thing that has held me in good stead in Mumbai for the past 2 years I have been here is the fact that the city and I share a common philosophy: Never Say Never.

Unfortunately, that spell was broken today for the first time to my observation. The whole of last 10 days have been not so great for Mumbai, what with the first spell of showers in this years Monsoons. They did expose the underbelly of the city and how prepared it was for the rainy season. Well, not too well I must say. I was on vacation at Delhi, and the moment I landed in Mumbai on the morning of July 3, 2006, the plane splashed straight into a Puddle!

Life was disrupted, and then some more. It was a replay of last years rainy season afterall. But the citizens got the better of it by trying and keeping life as normal as possible. Hell yeah, why else would people step out of the comforts of their homes and push the envelope to get to work. Why else would the BEST run buses in knee deep water as long as they could help it?

But then things have to wrong sometime and somewhere at least. Mumbai was excited about the Football Worldcup finals. All the papers and my inbox were full of offers and invitations to go watch the match on the big screen somewhere etc. The day was planned out well, meet long lost one friend for breakfast, recieve another one at home sometime later, and then go out for a movie in the evening, and then the Big Match. Little did I know there was trouble brewing in the heart of Mumbai.

Someone made mischief in Dadar with the Statue of Bal Thakarey’s Wife and the Shiv Sena Matriarch, and the entire Maharashtra Erupted! The entire episode seemed to be too non-sensical to me. There is no sense of restraint in the politically motivated it seems. If there was one fool taking a calculated risk in desecrating the bust, he or she knew that there were going to be enough fools to take the bait and go out and create lots of trouble for the city and the state of Maharasthra at large. And it happened!

Came back late last night after catchin up with a few pals at a pub, and so woke up late [Wokue up, went out for breakfast, back and slept] and out of tune with the news around me. A friend told me in the afternoon about the fact that there was rioting and some kinda curfew in the city. nevertheless, we planned a movie for the evening, after which i decided i shall head out to town and go watch the final match on the Big Screeen at the Taj President’s Trattoria.

But things were not meant to be. Turn on the TV and all the channels are full of news about how the Sena and its supporters have moved around the state and created nasty scenes. Tell me, how does burning down a bus or hitting the police with stones make up for your so called loss? I have never understood the funda of how someone’s loss could make up for someone elses loss? And there were these politicos, making irresponsible statements on TV like ” They are just expressing their anger against the miscreants, This was bound to happen” Hello? If you want to express anger, demonstrate. Don’t make a loss situation!

So, the day changed! I stepped out of home, and the whole of Andheri was empty. Shops were shut down! The usually active BEST also pulled the plug on bus services in the suburbs as a precautionary measure. I hunted down a Rickshaw to go for the movie, but almost getting there I was informed about the dropping of the plans … and I gingerly asked the same guy to take me back home, as I did not want to be stuck in a tense situation in the city. The Football plans were as a result called off with apologies and a promise to make up with tank fulls of draft beer to the ones at loss

On my way back home I noticed huge groups of Sena activists around someplace in Andheri. Now has the State lost its spine to not be able to control an “Unlawful Assembly” of people? Well, apparently, they want mileage from all of this to be able to fight back after their losses of Narayan Rane and Thakrey Nephew. For all you know, they might have planned and executed this feat themselves, to get some news coverage… considering elections are around. And this theory is now being talked about by the papers too. Click here to figure out what ToI has to say on this.

Any country’s stature on the International Arena is today dictated by its Economic and Economic Stature alone. And just while we are finding our feet as Bigwigs on the International Arena, here we are with the commercial capital of the country shutting down shops, shutting up work at the Airports and causing unnecessary tension in the City for no good reason. Imagine the loss to shops which actually make their buck on a weekend more than a weekday. The Coffee Economy, the Restaurants, and all the other fun joints. DNA says that over 200 Crore Rs. were the opportunity loss for one day! Too Bad!

To take the leap into being the world’s springboard of ideas and economic importance, we need to be teaching our generation and the ones next in line the lessons of economic independance rather than the difference between various Communities that exist in India. After all, you and me work together to make this country better, and no community works at cross purposes!

The politicos gotto learn their lessons and losen their grip and get the Manmohans and the PCs to run the country the way they want to. And not cause grief to everyone by pushing away the reforms agenda further from the country everyday.

my 2 paise!

Okay.. I was planning to have some food and go to sleep, but an old friends call kept me awake. I am thinking, and while I am thinking, I thought I might as well make good use of the time to tell you all about the rest of the happenings. The 27 hours of grit were over, but the next few were about to start now.As i entered home on Wednesday evening, I realised there was some more real Reel life stuff happening. the first one seemed to be a scene from a thriller or a horror flick. as soon as they open the door for me at home, i see a single solitary candle flickering in the middle of the room, and there were all the guys and girls sitting around the candle on the couch. it seemed they had all come together for some kinda black magic, or like one of those ceremonies they talked of in The Da Vinci Code.

Prabh, Siddharth, Sachin and Anshuman (my flatmates!) were all there already. all of them had reached at different points of time, and all had their offices closer to home than i did. Also there were Sonali and Supriya, next door neighbours and the owners of the solitary candle. All the talk was about the same stuff that seemed to have engross all of India for the past day or so.

No candles in the market, and we supposedly had the last 3 bottles of bottled water from our neighborhood store. The candle burned out, and we were left groping in the dark. The night seemed endless with only a torch-cum-FM reciever to help you make it through the night. The rains were slowing down but the red skies made us believe it would be going on full throttle again. And we took some good piece of advice.

All of us managed to eat something to survive. The water was too contaminated to even think of cooking Maggi in it, and there was no way we were going to order food from a restaurant.

It was one of those times when talking each other out was the only way out. Being one of those ground floor residents, we took adequate caution. Just incase we were about to float, we’d be ready to run. And the run would come easy when we had our most precious belongings on us. So, the iPod joined the mobile phone(s) and the laptop and other important documents in the bag that held me in good stead in these testing times!

I took calls from home on mobiles offered to me,with full charge from the office of people who were lucky to have them nearby. They were the only ones updated on me. I did not want to spend precious charge on others waiting to hear from me, who all were, i never even knew as of now.

Dropping off to sleep in a windy and dark night, I prayed to God that He’d see me through this. And he did. Next morning was clean, but the power supply was still cut off. I did not have to go to work, and hence, I carried on in bed. Woke up around noon, and by late afternoon electricity was restored.

Maggi seemed to be survival strategy. To get some cash, I walked to the nearest ATM .. which was predicabaly shut down. All of them around home were. My legs were killing me but cash, or the lack of it might have posed problems ahead. So, I took the bus to the station and hunted for a working ATM there. Lucky for me Citi had got its ATMs up and going, but the silly problem was there was not enough cash in there. It showed the grand amount as funds in waiting. So, gingerly I had to fish out another ATM card and withdraw cash from the bank, give them some service charges too! After all, they were the only ones holding me in good stead in times of need!