Some time ago, I'd posted some snaps from China Gate in Atria, and the other day I found myself there again, and once again I was snapping pictures of the glass designs they have on the walls. Maybe it's just something I love about glass.
Yes, yes, their food is also very good!
TV is all about how the real estate prices in India are rising. And no where is this more apparent than in the case of Central Bombay, where I live. This place epitomises change - from the mill workers' colonies of once-upon-a-time to the land of malls and uber-swanky skyscrapers that dot the landscape these days. Looking out of the window in my room, you can see three tall cranes in succession, busy grinding and groaning away at some task. Strange that the tiny short cut I used to take to my earlier office leads into a now-defunct textile mill (now it houses offices of graohic design companies and a bank), which then meanders into the back yard of a very expensive skyscraper. :)
The Sports Bar in Phoenix Mills used to be a regular haunt, at one point of time. Especially when we used to work at CNBC. The boss used to take us there a coupla times for 'treats' and all, and we would sit one this huge couch at one corner, throw darts, play pool, drink beer and exchange silly jokes. Then the CNBC days got over, and Sports Bar kinbda became... distant. Even though I still worked and lived a stone's throw away... And so later it became a kind of a feel-good factor, a memory thing - of when all of us would get together, pop some corn, chug a few beers, not worry about potbellies and sing along with Paul Young.
A magazine I would probably have never picked up, had it not featured my best friend in a sexy centrespread - completely non tilitillating, of course. So suddenly, I'm the family expert as far as diffuse yellow lighting and curtain fabrics are concerned. :) Suddenly, I'm criticising my brother's nylon curtains and horrendous velvet sofa set and glass side tables.
I love the song Aaj ki raat from the movie Don, SRK Version. Something so Damn Sixties about it - can just imagine the John Travolta-style finger dance action (you know which one I'm talkin' about, don't look so mortified!) and it completely gets your groove thang rockin! So that's why I also luuurrrve shiny disco balls - both the thingy, and the song. Clicked this one at a Goa pub, and then took a retake in 'night' mode below.
And then, the other day, I'm going though Bandra, and I see in an ironing shop (of all places!) the most gorgeous, the most divine, the most lustrous silver shiny disco ball, hanging from the hutment ceiling at a corner.
shaam hai, jaam hai, aur hai nasha
tan bhi hai, mann bhi hai pighla huaan...
chhayi hai ranginiya
phir bhi hai betaabiyan...
kyun dhadakta hai dil...
kyun yeh kehta hai dil...
deewanon ko ab tak nahi hai yeh pata...!
aaj ki raat...
khona hai kya...
paana hai kya...
khona hai kya...
This place was called the Hanuman Bar, of all places, at Anjuna. And while we were drinking coffee (too many beers during the daytime already), Binay here started playing with the lamp hanging overhead. I took three snaps of him - what I labelled as Arty, Intense and Playful. Up there is Intense. Down there is Arty and Playful.
Aa, but The Specimen likes these candid snaps. Where he pretends he's not posing. :) Whereas I prefer the brash ones. Chalk and cheese, we are. We've both commented on that. But I'd be quite lost without my Agony Uncle. Corny, huh?
Quintessential Goa. Anjuna Beach on the rocky approach, and we were at this great li'l joint called Zoori's, with had divans and cushions and low tables, where we feasted on kingfish and lasagna (do I hear you go what???) and grilled chicken, and ogled at the view - and I don't mean just the sea here. Breathtaking, it was. :)
Back home in Calcutta, my mum and grandma would go shopping at the Gariahat market for little knick knacks every Saturday evening, and invariably return with a pair of new but not-so expensive slippers for mum. My mum loves shoes - even though she abhors spending more than Rs 500 for a pair. And while I used to joke about her shoe-fetish then, it turns out that her genes are pretty strong in me. :) That's my shoe-box up there - a crate stuffed with all ten pairs of them. My inexpensive Oshos (two pairs), my white Nike sneakers, my black Adidas sneakers, my black leather office-going shoes, my tapering black witchy-bitchy shoes, my hyper-expensive white Red Tapes, my all-weather Lee Cooper slip-ons, my felt brown Gasoline sneakers and my Woodland boots.
Not quite the rocking-horse I had when I was a kid, but cute, nonetheless. The li'l pen-stand/ desktop accessory that Rajat got from Bangkok looks like a cross between a zebra and horse with multicoloured legs (not to mention, a cross between a quadripedal animal and a box) and I could not resist snapping him. He looks so... happy!
Picked up the nameplate for my apartment from this squat old man who sits near my office at Fort. He has a tiny detachable-retractable stall, and it's clustered with NO TRESSPASSING, Dr Shyam Ahuja, MBBS; Flat 207 KHANDELWALS, and DO NOT DISTURBs screaming out in the busy road. I knew what I wanted: something simple in brass or copper, simple sheen, with my name and my flatmate's in nice big capital letters.
Books on my shelf again, two which seemed kind-a familiar. Read DevilWearsPrada first, after seeing the movie. Was with Rajat, trying to shop for a birthday for his nephew, and instead I picked up Weisberger's matinee hit work. The book was loads different from the movie though - Andrea was much more whiny - not a change which you appreciate at first, when you start reading the book after having seen the movie, but then the book drawns you in, nonetheless. Has its own charm.
This was a pic that was a mistake. Sharon fumbling with the digicam, trying to take a self-snap, and then her fingers got in the way when she clicked on the shutter button. Instant Coffee Karma pic, is what I call this one.
And of course, she returned the favour, and there was one of me, twiddling my thumbs.
I've been a fan of Madge ever since I can remember. I used to have the cassettes of her very first albums, straight from the 'Holiday' days, graduating to 'True Blue' and 'Like a Virgin' and then 'Like a Prayer' and I even did a 'Bedtime Story'. I was reduced to opera-like tears when I heard her rendition of Don't Cry For Me Argentina... and I was giggling in bubblegum glee when she went all Material Girl. Madge is the Indisputable Queen of Pop - I am sooooooo Hung Up on her! :)
This was then the (very blurry) Hall of Fame at the Hard Rock Cafe, of which Madge is a part - together with Bono and who I think is a very young Billy Idol up there. The occassion was the birthday party of a dear little boy, so the rest of us dear little boys decided to go and drink ourselves silly in a way that our dear little mothers would surely have disapproved. And I was also taking dear little drunken photographs of the gigantic arty-farty chandelier that was hanging from the reeeeeaaalllly high ceiling - a bit of artful photoshop strokes and filters and here you have a suitably arty-farty blemished representation of the same -
