Black & Yellow

The all-pervasive Taxis of Bombay. The first time I came to Bombay, ages ago, we got this really chatty cabbie who took us all around Marine Drive and Churchgate, and showed us Mantralaya, saying 'yehan pe sab chorlog rehte hain' (this is the house of thieves) - much to the amusement of my dad. :) The best thing about a Bombay cabbie is: he knows! His brain is sharper and keener than the most evolved GPRS system - the guy knows! And that's amazing.

Lady Flora

Flora Fountain is a complete Bambaiyya landmark. Bang on *hold on, real tonguetwister here* Hutatma Chowk, the place is a complete traffic stopper. Literally. The traffic snarls here at office time, right in the heart of the city's financial district, are terrible. :)


The fountain is actually only one of several such drinking water fountains that were built by the city's leading philanthropists at one point of time. While a few of them have been restored and culled, many of them are simply... forgotten. Conservationists are trying to relocate these old masterpieces - important now only for their heritage value, and no water fountain use - and restore them to their former glory. The Flora is the most famous of all of these.


Tried some Black & White snaps here of the Liberty Statue which stands right next to Flora, and the Chowk over all. A bit of history, eh? :)

Amen

St Thomas Cathedral, at Horniman Circle, Fort. In terms of foodie landmarks:

• Opposite Gujju favourite Dwarka.
  
  
• Short walk away from Piccolo and its yummy chocolate tarts.
  
  
• Just a stone's throw from Moti Karachiwala, which serves the yummiest rabri.
  

O, and yes, it's beautiful. Quite apart from Location. :)

Ideal Food

Cafe Ideal Corner up there is my usual Lunch Place at work. The place has been there for ages, owned by some Iranis, and serves the most amazing food. menu changes everyday, but the staples are: old-style raspberry soda and caramel custard. Of course, dhansaak on Wednesdays and Fridays. :) Cutlet-gravy everyday, as with chicken salli. And yes, I do know the menu (s) by heart!


Up there is a close-up of laganu custard - a variation of custard, liberally sprinkled with dates and dried fruits, that is quite the rage in Parsi weddings. Down there is jerdaloo (apricot) chicken, a yummy tangy-spicy concoction. Parsi food usually has some sweet after-taste/ pre-taste.: you can call it the Gujju connection, if you like! :)



Was just experimenting with the camera in the restaurant, so up there is a close-up of an exhaust fan they have on the wall. Took it from the mezzanine flor where I usually sit (down there), which affords me a great view of the place. I love the little blue and orange glass lamps they have on the wall. Very... cheerful!


One last snap of Ideal Corner - the outside of the building from across the road.

Dalals and the Devi

Welcome to the land of money. Stocks and shares may raise my blood pressure, but they will never deter me... from investing! :)

Funny thing is... a stone's throw away from the Bombay Stock Exchange, you have this cute little old Lakshmi mandir. Beautifully painted. It's on my way to cafe Ideal Corner.

Black Horse

The Kaala Ghoda Arts Festival comes every February during the first week of February, and lasts for about 7-8 days. For those days, the entire stretch at Rampart Row, from Jehangeer Art Gallery to the Cama Hall, and the Horniman Circle Gardens inf front of the Asiatic Society building are utterly vibrant with (ahem ahem) The Arts. OK, so enough of sounding like the Mumbai Guide Book you find in your hotel room. Take my word for it - it's an amazing experience.

Painting brick by brick: Not just paintings, but also sculpture, music and dance performances, theatre and drama, book reading and writing, films and food - everything that could possibly be considered part of the Arts. The good part is, it's not even as highbrow as you would imagine an Arts Festival to be. :)

Dockyard Ditty: Inaugurated by the Naval Band's performance, the festival kicked off on Saturday, February 4. Our boys in white were impeccably turned out, and their instruments were in fine condition! :)

A last pic of the Kaala Ghoda Square, down there. Behind the makeshift model of the white airplane and the old-style roofed buildings, you can see the Bombay Stock Exchange standing tall.

Fairy Colours

Like the shot of the guy through the toys, in the snap below. Smile, you're on Candid Camera...!

Of course, the lady down there doesn't look like she's in a very smiling mood. It's all work and no play here at the KGF - sell, sell, sell some more! :)


Kites at the 'Bombay Project'. By the way, Rajat hates me calling it KGF. :)

Fly High at Kaala Ghoda

That contraption was labelled the Amchi Autocoptook, a highly creative individual's vision of what it would take to bypass the traffic in South Bombay - convert the humble zigzaggity auto rickshaw of the suburbs into a chopper that would evade the potbellied havaldars of the island city and help us reach our destinations on time... ingenious!

I'm Quackers about it! Green wooden duck for sale at a stall at the Festival.

The city's going to the dogs! An initiative to protest the rampant killing of street dogs in the city - the artists are arguing for compassion here. Methinks they should come to Parel post 3 am - the dogs here are so rabid that the last thing on your mind is compassion! (aaa, but then, I am the Pigeon Killer! *grin*)

Steel Dabbas. Part of the 'Bombay Project', you have steel bicycles with gleaming steel dabbas handpainted in reds and blues. You won't see too many dabbawallas on the roads carting these babies around, though!

Light up my trees... Pretty coloured lanterns hanging up there - very much for sale, and very much pricey. :) So says the cheapskate.

A piece of Tibet at Kaala Ghoda...

The Kaala Ghoda Festival kicked off with this performance by a travelling Tibetan troupe. So you had the whole rigamarole - dancers, drummers and even this pop-star type in a great brocade jacket who crooned some stuff that received loads of applause from the crowd even though no one knew what teh guy was singing about. :) But then, that's Bombay for you!

Of course, other than the dance performances, what was simply amazing was the Snow Lion dance - very traditional Tibetan fare. The 'lions' were pretty talented: loads of leaps in the air without any embarassing separation of the head and tail parts, loads of funky drumming, and some great head-lolling that saw the crowd cheer its head off.

Got Rajat to take these snaps of the lions for me, cajoling him with the "You're taller than I am" argument, but once he got up front, he pretty much went ballistic, shooting some 10 snaps - these are the ones I've selected from those! Am quite satisfied with his handiwork! hehe.

No Black Horse Anymore, But Still... !

Music to the ears: Apart from the Festival, Kaala Ghoda is an excellent place to hang out at. Even though the original statute of the black horse ('kaala ghoda') has been sifted out eons ago to make room for a (gasp!) car parking lot, this place abounds in... charm. And that's personified the most perhaps by Rhythm House, bang on Rampart Row: this is where you will find possibly the most exhaustive music collection anywhere in Bombay - it's practically a heritage institution of the city!

Also on the list of KG institutions is the David Sassoon Library, facing the square where the old statue used to be. This area is also completely littered with grand old buildings, continuing right onto VT and the Fort area...

Completely yummy for my camera...! :) Rajat was screaming at me while I stopped every five minutes to click. :)

And from the square, you can see the great big dome of the Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj Museum (also the Prince of Wales Museum) a stone's throw away. On my agenda to go inside sometime soon, hopefully...


Rajat up there, grumpily posing before the Museum.

Short Baroda Break

Genie in a bottle: Came back home after the much-posted Delhi trip, only to discover that the geyser in my loo had conked it, and we were without hot water at the flat. So the next day, I ran to work without taking a shower (it helped that my last shower in Delhi had been only an hour before rushing to catch the flight) and there I find out that I'm to jet it out to (yikes) Baroda the next day. Early morning flight. That explains the reverential placement of the toiletry items on the basin of the Taj Residency, Baroda, when I finally get to have my bath there.

After a spell of nearly 48 hours... I'm SCRUBBED CLEAN! :)

So, after all the picture taking in the loo is done (sounds kinky, doesn't it? *grin*) I get down to work and all that jazz. After a long and tiring day of playing the good PR executive, I'm back up in my hotel room, looking out of my balcony onto the courtyard/poolside restaurant below. And that's when I decide to experiment with exposure settings again. The little yellow balls in the pics below are reflections of the lights in my room on the windowpane, through which I'm clicking.

Blues' Night Out: I like the effect! :)

Vote, Mumbai!

Elections to the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation, bettern known as the BMC to Bombayites, and so I thought it appropriate that the very first pics from my shutterbug evening last Saturday should be those of the BMC. Bang opposite the VT, another Bombay landmark, the BMC building is simply... GOTHIC.

For the record, around 83 lakh voters exercise their franchise in the elections to India’s largest municipal corporation, which has a budget of over Rs 12,000 crore, more than the budget of eight states. But unlike the Lok Sabha and assembly elections, voters’ turn out has remained low in civic elections in Mumbai - last time around, despite polling on a Sunday, the turnout was barely 42%.
I played around with some exposure and light settings to get just the right amount of blur on the people crossing the pavement up there. Didn't realize, how it would all fit so well with the Election theme! :)

Backdoor Entry? That's a glimpse of the BMC building through the arches framing the entrance of the Victoria Terminus (VT) bang opposite. This time, while voter mood seems to favour the Congress and the NCP, the incumbent BJP-Shiv Sena combine may well manage to hold onto their seats through the backdoor entry: low voter turnout traditionally has favoured the BJP-Sena, plus, with the Congress and NCP not able to cobble together a pre-poll alliance, things might get jittery for them!