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...

Note: This post was not written by Ross Geller (FRIENDS) Hi, today is Ashtami. The biggest and most auspicious day of Durga Puja. It is also the 25th anniversary of the Puja in our building. I was there when the Puja started 25 years back. And am lucky enough to be here this time too. 25 years. Phew, that's a long time. Wonder how things will be on number 50? Got a piece of good news to share with you on this auspicious day. As you probably know I am a market researcher by trade. That's what pays for the bacon I bring home, make pasta with and write about. My job is to help clients understand what consumer feel about topics of relevance so that they (the clients) can work out their strategies. Well, this is an instance where work and play collides. I had written a paper on how blogs and social media (Facebook, Twitter) can be used to get customer feedback for small businesses . The paper was based on, what else, food blogging. Things I observed on Finely Choppe...

You might have read about young Rouvanjit Rawla. He used to study in La Martinere for Boys. One of the premiere schools in Calcutta. I am referring to him in the past tense as he took his life recently. Thirteen years is all he got in this world. The caning or corporal punishment that he received in school apparently led to his suicide. Caning? Didn't that happen only in David Copperfield? Well not really. I moved into an ‘Indian’ school in Calcutta in 1984 when I was ten. My earlier experience with schools, or play schools, was in the UK, Iran and then in an ‘International’ school in Calcutta. We knew about the Solar System. But not about canes. The ‘Indian’ school I went to, following the ICSE board, was where I first came across the concept of caning. Except it was with wooden rulers and not canes. Our teachers would take our rulers and then hit us across our palms. At times till the rulers broke. Boys. Girls. No gender discrimination. Across ages. By all teachers. Always...

The defining mother son moment of Hindi films of the seventies was Shashi Kapoor telling Bachchan ‘mere paas maa hain’ (Mom’s with me) in 'Deewar'. Nirupa Ray, who played the mother in question, played the same character in a number of other films too. Struggling to put ends meet so that she could bring up Amitabh Bachchan in various movies. Unquestioned devotion to his mother drove the hero and the story of the film. The recently released Hindi film, ‘Wake up Sid’, showed a very different mother son relation. Supriya Pathak, the mother, was doting and smothering. Ranbir Kapoor, the petulant son. Churlish. Irritated. Snapping at his mother at all points. Something which would have been unheard of for a hero in the seventies. Is it becomes the times are different? Is it because we have moved to consumerism from Gandhism? Or is it because Wake Up Sid was directed by a Bengali? After all Bengali mothers are considered to be amongst the most protective of their sons. But ...

Tapen Chattopadhyay, who played the character of Goopy in Satyajit Ray's Goopy Bagha series passed away a few days back. The Goopy Bagha films defined children's films in a country where there weren't many. Films you could grow up with as you kept discovering layer after layer each time you saw them. For many of us they were the rare home grown super heroes cum rock stars. Though more in the Asterix quirky, double meaning, genre. This post is not about Goopy Bagha. You can check this excellent post by the Great Bong to get an idea of the phenomenon that was Goopy Bagha if you want to know more. I first heard about Tapen Chattopadhay's death from a college friend on Facebook. Soon status updates from others of my vintage began to pop up. Culminating with the above blog post which was linked by many including me. I guess the mid thirties is a strange period. This is when the icons you have grown up with begin to leave you. Bagha, or Robi Ghosh, was long gone. Goop...