Mumbai Coffee House

A taste of Mumbai It struck me the other day that it has been about twenty years since the time I took my first steps, albeit unwittingly, towards moving into Mumbai. I had been recruited by a market research agency in Kolkata from campus back then. I joined my new office once the MBA course was over. We were then sent to Mumbai for a training programme in August 1997. Once the course was over, my colleagues from Kolkata returned home. I was slated to stay back for a 2 month training programme in Mumbai which then stretched on for close to 6 months. I was put up at a PG in Bandra by my office then. Such  a long journey This was the first time that I was living away from home. All I wanted to do then was to get back to Kolkata as soon as I could. Go back and build a successful career in market research hopefully. Move to an apartment in a posher part of Kolkata than where we lived. At Ballygunge for example.  I thought it would be cool one day have a club ...

Scene 1: I had gone to pay local taxes at a government office in Bandra a few days back. I was directed to a table where there was no-one else waiting. I went up to the officer at the desk and submitted our papers. He keyed in the details in to his computer. The results flashed immediately. I gave our cheque, so far so good. Then the officer pointed out that the cheque was Rs 12 (twelve) more than what was due. We looked at each other and tried to figure out what has to be done. Suddenly an elderly corpulent gentleman came and sidled up and stood beside me. I waited a for a couple of seconds. I thought he might have a question for the officer. I looked at the encroacher. He smiled at me. There was no-one behind me and yet he stood beside me. I looked at him and said, 'do you mind standing behind me? We are discussing something here.' He smiled at me and said, 'no problem, I will wait.' I drew my breath and said, 'can you please stand in the queue while we...

Yesterday I came out of a meeting about a new media vehicle which is yet to establish itself in India.  The possibilities sounded interesting though. The owner of the company told me about the growth of this media in the US. I listened to his reasons for believing that it has potential in India too. The reasoning sounded interesting.  I thought about our chat after I went home. I was keen to know more about this medium.  Then I happened to go on Instagram then and suddenly saw a live story from my cousin there. She has just graduating from the NYU in New York. She often puts up examples of her design work on Instagram. That's when I remembered that media studies were part of the seemingly complex course that she had done. By 'complex', I mean a course that seemed more fluid than the Sociology or Literature or Physics or Geology Hons of my time in college in Kolkata. I suddenly got the the idea to reach out to her to know more about what we had discussed ...

My mom in law comes to visit us on weekends. Sometimes we watch TV together at dinner time.  This is what follows: 1. Vir Das:  Studied silence from the three of us. Hassan Minhaj's act was more parent friendly IMO.  Teddy to K the next morning: 'Do you know the name of the writers? They are very good' 2. Crown, episode 1 Teddy at the end: 'Prince Philip toh useless nikhlooj' PS Parsis do take the affairs of the Royal Family to heart 3. War Machine At the start of a tense counterinsurgency operation, Teddy:  'L&T has got the contract to rebuild Afghanistan' Even Brad Pitt looked startled! Appendix: We'd started it all with Bourdain's No Reservation which is the least blush worthy of the lot.  Teddy's response halfway through the show:  No programme on TV today? I am going to sleep then! #Brutal

The Mumbai police has given an address where we can write in requesting for card payments and mobile wallet payments at the airport pre-paid cab counter. I just wrote in. Request you all to do so too and share this. We can at least try The ID to write in is : feedback@csia.gvk.com This is the text of my mail: Hello, My name is Kalyan Karmakar. I am a food and travel writer based in Mumbai and am a frequent traveller who uses the airports at Mumbai very often.  I recently flew into T2 from Hong Kong via Kolkata. I didn't have cash on me as I had left country before the demonetisation drive. I wanted to use a card to book a pre-paid cab at the airport but couldn't as they don't accept cards. I finally took a Meru and requested my wife to pay when I reached home. Luckily I had 100 Rs to Pay the convenience fee. My request to you is that you should ask the pre-paid taxi counter to accept cards and mobile wallets such as paytm to help us citizen...

I rarely comment on social or political issues as I prefer not to speak about things I am not fully aware of. The current demonisation issue has led to lot of strident comments on social media from both of sides of the fence and stands are usually extreme rather than nuanced. So I decided to write a post on this on Facebook. Sitting at a place which doesn't accept cards and where I had to depend on my wife to buy my breakfast. Here's what I wrote: I'd been out of the country when this demonitisation thing happened. Didn't have cash on me but was not affected much personally at the beginning. I couldn't buy fish for my granny from local markets when I reached Calcutta as I didn't have cash and had no time to go to a super market. It was not critical.  I had to intervene on her behalf to make a payment to the worker clearing the garbage at her place. Neither of us had non 500 Rs notes to give him and being a daily labourer, he couldn't take a day off work ...

“The philosophers have only  interpreted  the world, in various ways. The point, however, is to  change  it." We were introduced to this quote from Karl Marx by a gentleman named Samit Kar who taught us Marxism in Presidency College. We had a paper on Marxism as a part of our Sociology course designed by the Calcutta University in the mid 1990s.  I was not into Marxism, which seemed so anachronistic in the post Berlin Wall fall days, and wasn't too keen on these classes. However there was no forgetting this line of Marx as Professor Kar would keep repeating it.  He was so fond of this line that a friend of mine and I wondered if this is what he told his wife the night he had got married!  I must mention that prof Kar had graciously invited all of us from class to his wedding at a place called Shinghi Park and it was a happy evening. Whether his favourite Marxist quote was a part of what was discussed later that night was not something that w...

Didn't go out for breakfast this morning and just wanted to call in for a coffee. So called for a Starbucks cappuccino using the Swiggy app as we often do these days. Delivered in less than 20 min. Hot and frothy. Used Swiggy to order from Sweet Bengal a few days back for a party at home. Quick and headache free. Same when we called from Imbiss and Hangla when friends dropped in. For Candies and Khane Khas, I still use the phone to call the restaurant though they have tied up with delivery apps too Made me think about other apps which have changed our lives for late. Ola and Uber, despite our occasional rants, for sure. Don't need to keep a driver anymore. Rarely take out the car now. Can nap when in traffic than gnash my teeth at the wheel. Also MyDidi these days for temp house help though we use the phone more often than their site but a great service for sure. We don't use grocery or veggie apps that much yet as we get things easily fro...

I live in the suburb of Bandra, home to many who are exploring new journeys in life. In the city of Mumbai, which is considered to be a city of dreams and of opportunities. At most times our Vodafone phone connections (we have two 15 year plus accounts) don't work and nor do the internet connections on them. The Airtel 4G device too is used primarily as a fly swatter now as the internet is barely functional. The MTNL wifi keeps disconnecting. The Tata Photon often naps, specially during the afternoon. I tried You Broadband for a while and disconnected it as it was forever under maintenance. 'Digital India' is a smart tagline indeed and our spin doctors have many such lines. But as I sit at my writing desk desperately seeking some internet connection, it sounds like hot air to me. I can but dream of a time when we will look back at these angst ridden moments and laugh like we do today at the world of Trunk Calls and of going to the neighbour's house to make phone...

There’s no justification to killing men. There’s no justification to killing women. There's no justification to killing grown ups. There can never be any justification to killing children. There's no justification to killing in the first world. Or in the third world. Death knows no religion.   Terrorists won't read Facebook statuses. Nor will politicians or army generals.   But we can make a start to ending this madness by talking. Get to know those who are different from you. Make an effort. Find a common ground. For me it could be food. It could be cinema for you. Dialogue is the only way to break discord, to abandon hate and to embrace happiness.   Sounds philosophical. Is very practical.  

I am rarely on Linkedin. The other day I was on the site to answer a mail and decided to update my profile while there. Which is when I realised that you can only put one job as your 'current job'. This seems a bit archaic and doesn't take into account the realities of today's unstructured world in my opinion. I remember Roshan Abbas taking on his twitter trolls in a Facebook status update the other day. He rebutted those who call him 'jobless' by saying he holds three jobs, if I remember right. That sounded familiar. I didn't know what to put in my profile.  I consult with Karvy Insights, a market research firm. I am an editor at large for the India Food Network. The lead Mumbai critic for EazyDiner. I've joined the NDTV Food as a columnist. I write for publications like MW, Mumbai Mirror and Femina. I work with brands on promotional campaigns. I have my YouTube channel, The Finely Chopped . And it all started with my blog, Finely ...

Have you noticed how most of the new office complexes in Mumbai don't allow auto rickshaws inside?. Black and yellow taxis too.   If you are using these then you have to get off at the gate and make the long trek in. No such problems if you are in a private car or in air-conditioned cab. Those are allowed in. Though parking is a pain.   Most of these office complexes are not pedestrian friendly and you have to walk in quite a bit to reach your destination. There is no shade or shelter on the walkway. Which means that you are left at the mercy of the blazing sun these days. And it will be much worse when it rains.   Contrast this with Fort, the old CBD of Mumbai. The plethora of lofty trees there and building awnings means that you can always walk in the shade. Even if it rains. Nor does that area get flooded.   Bliss compared to the new office complexes in Saki Naka, BKC, Goregaon and Powai.   And don't ev...

If you had told me that sunny afternoon in the early 90s when I had dashed off in a cycle rickshaw  after school to pick up a gas cylinder at a godown in Kolkata, which we had booked months back, that today I would just dial the IVR on my cell, punch buttons, and half an later receive a call from a gas cylinder delivery guy to coordinate when to deliver the cylinder at our place in Mumbai I would have said, 'yeah right, next you will say we will all have telephones and can carry them with us!' Incidentally it was Bharat Gas in both cases.  Different centuries. Different cities.

Yesterday I shot with the host of a TV food show for an episode of her show. The episode is going to centre around a couple of food bloggers. The idea of the show apparently came up when the host realised that she was increasingly using blog posts to decide on where to eat rather than mass media reviews. This evening in The News Hour on Times Now Arnab Goswami suddenly looked at the camera and exhorted the audience to go viral and protest against police performing odd jobs for politicians or something like that. 'Go to Facebook and twitter and register your protest' said Goswami. Incidentally while Times Now has a twitter handle, Goswami doesn't. A bit later I was watching Barkha Dutt chat with Salman Rushdie and Deepa Mehta and their conversation suddenly turned to twitter. Rushdie pointed out that for him twitter is the fastest way of finding out what's happening around him. Barkha herself is on twitter and unlike other big TV journalists on Twitter, such ...

A colleague of mine who is getting married this month was pretty happy after they identified a flat in Andheri W that they planned to rent after they got back. Then I heard that the rent deal fell through. The housing society insists that they need a wedding certificate. Their parents met the society and yet the society didn't agree. And they can't even take the house when they get married as the certificate needs 2,3 weeks. That they are planning the wedding in some coastal spot in Kerala with loads of folks coming in doesn't count. The landlady is helpless and loses a tenant. There are many mafias in Mumbai and the housing societies sit pretty much at the top

This morning I woke up and checked twitter & facebook on the phone as I do first thing everyday. Except today wasn’t ‘any day’. The news waiting for us was the most saddening one possible. The young lady in Delhi, who was brutally raped and assaulted in the bus from hell a few days back, who since then was fighting for her life against all odds, had finally lost her battle. This anonymous girl, who became an unfortunate symbol of the atrocities that women in India are subjected to, had breathed her last. Murdered by the six monsters in that ill fated bus. I flinched the moment I read the news. My first thoughts were about what must have happened in the bus and what inhuman brutality the young lady was subjected to. If the very thought of it made one cringe and recoil in horror then one cannot even imagine how the girl who actually went though it and tried to fight it out suffered. A fight which seems to have galvanised the nation...

We were headed to town for lunch on the 7th of Feb. Almost three weeks back. We stopped at a traffic signal at Bandra Reclamation opposite the Candies turn. The road was largely empty. Suddenly there was a jolt from the back and a very loud sound. Turned out that a woman driving a silver coloured Santro had banged into our car which was stationary. We were sitting at the rear seat and were quite shaken up. We got down to check the damages. Despite the loud noise and the impact we seemed to be ok. No visible damages to us. Our car seemed to be fine too. The lady driving the car that banged into us was quite shaken up herself. She got off and kept apologizing to us. Her car seemed to be more bruised than ours even though she had banged into us. I got back into the car. I decided not to get into a fight or argument. Didn’t see the point. Didn’t want to spoil the day. So I barely spoke to her, glared and went away. When we came home that evening we figured out that things were ...

  There was an article in the papers this morning which reminded me of an incident from a while back. I had just joined the work force then.   Some folks had come to work in jeans that day. Not standard regulations. Turned out that they were on leave. They were on leave as they could not claim their LTA otherwise. But apparently had too much work, were too busy, were too important to actually go on leave. Wearing jeans at work was their honour badge. The vacation … only on paper.   It was the 90s.   Kolkata actually. Not Mumbai.   Then a new century started. A new city for me. Mumbai. Another corporate concept… ‘Half day’.   I remember at least two occasions…in two different companies where folks went all the way to the office gate taunting their colleagues, who were leaving just a bit after official closing hours, with a kindergarten bully-like taunt of ‘half day … half day’. A very prevalent form of sledging then.   Luck...

The barber shop traditionally was a  man's last bastion of serenity. A place away from domestic chores and feminine wiles. A place to talk about man stuff. The barber often multi-tasking as a shrink. My genes tell me that haircuts are one thing that I don't need to set aside money for in my retirement fund. A few more haircuts and soon that's one thing that won't need to be ticked on the to do list. Which is how I explain spending a ridiculously high amount for haircuts.  I don't know if I want to name the place I go to. Simply because I am sure they would like folks with thicker manes to be their brand ambassadors.  It's an airy, glass and chrome place, young folks in black, lounge music that I recognize from the gym.    There are no barbers here. There are stylists. I had a 'stylist' for the last couple of years. S was the exact  opposite of the swarthy barbers of yore. Over time our conversations became interesting. T...

Bumped into a few Bangladeshis at Sydney's Miller Street. They were talking in Bengali and I asked them for directions in Bengali. We began to talk. Turned out they were at the 'Uni'. On hearing I was from India, they asked me if I was from Kolkata. Mumbai, I replied without thinking. Got a bit philosophical when I left them. Where am I from?