Mumbai Coffee House

Met a Social Media friend from Delhi for the first time last weekend. We met up at Gloria Jean's, Bandra, for a short while. A place which he confessed to love. I like Gloria Jean's too. As does my wife and many others. I pass the road in front of Gloria Jean's on the way to work everyday. At times I try to grab a bite in the car and sip a juice as I am not the sort who wants the worm in any case. Problem is that I have to wait for the stretch to get over before I start eating. Its pot holes and pockmarks would make the food somersault in your tummy. Never a good idea. I was hoping that they would fix it when Obama came to Mumbai. Then he flew down to South Mumbai and we were left with audacious hope. Most of the houses at Bandra resemble the road that I described - old, damp walls, peeling paint, tired plumbing, pre-liberalisation flooring, badly planned, dark, dank and small. Yet, here are some interesting things I found out through hearsay. My friend who lives at G...

I miss the good old days of a DD antenna and a booster antenna for Bangladesh TV. Or even the cable wallahs whose office you could go to. Scream and rant and get technicians if something went wrong. I don't want a satellite dish service which teaches me supreme patience and tolerance. I don't want a satellite dish service which prepares me for the worst that life can throw at me. I don't want a satellite dish service which prepares me for failure, being ignored, being dumped. I don't want to be grounded. My TV rights taken away. I thought I'd grown beyond that. I don't want a satellite dish service which doesn't work. Which takes my complaint. Gives me a booking number and a date three days later. Followed only by a SMS that my 'complaint is closed'. Asks me for feedback on their service, which I never experienced. Y for Yes. N for No. And if you text N then the reply is 'invalid service'. I want my MTV.

For all the snide remarks about their being a virtual make belief invisible world, I have met some really interesting people, and made some of my best friends of late, thanks to Blogger, Facebook, Twitter and of course something called Orkut.  I met Shubho who is fairly prominent in Twitter and FB for the first time today. He said the same thing about meeting folks through social media. He was in his 40s and said that he had connected with some wonderful people across age groups. Some of these 'connections' remain virtual and yet at times more intimate than many acquaintances in the real world. And some cross what my friend, Kaniska, calls the fine line between the real and the virtual world. Yes we  too met thanks to the blog. And this evening we had dinner with some of my original friends through blogging and another new blogging friend. This is a social reality of our times. Thank God for that. So do you draw your sustainable from the 'virtual world'? I be...