So here’s how it all started a few weeks ago … all on Facebook ! I kept seeing the words ‘pani puri’ and it got me craving to eat some Bombay style chaats !
Translation of ‘paani puri paane ke liey kuch khona padtha hai ..’
To get a ‘pani puri’ then you must give up something (precious / meaningful) to you
And that’s the secret folks ! My very good friend and new client – Rish Oberoi – has just launched his own line of very funky out-of-the-box style urban t-shirts called ‘Paani Puri Clothing’ !
For those of you that don’t know what Paani Puri is – then here’s a bit of a filler for you … and I just realised I don’t quite know to describe it to you … hence I’m gonna cheat and give you a Wikipedia description
Pani Puri or Golgappa is a popular street snack in the Indian subcontinent. It comprises a round, hollow "puri", fried crisp and filled with a waterymixture of tamarind, chili, chaat masala, potato, onion and chickpeas. Its size is small enough to fit in the mouth.
The term golgappa refers to the fact that crisp sphere ("gol") is placed in the mouth and eaten ("gappa") at one time, without biting. Pani comes from the Hindi word for water and puri (or poori), an Indian bread made by frying dough in oil.
At this point you must be wondering why am I providing you all with a description about Pani Puris ? Whenever I think about Pani Puri’s I have tended to associate them with some really fond memories whilst I was growing up.
I’m somewhere around 10-4 years old, standing in front of one of the most popular Pani Puri restaurant snack counter – practically gulping down ‘teekhah mitha’ pani puris … In fact a very old school friend, SH (known her since ‘93) sent me a message on FaceBook the other day and we were recapping our Pani Puri experiences !
I’ve got some serious Pani Puri cravings at this point and can’t wait to get my hands on some from Kailash Parbath near my house !
But there’s more to the story – so keep reading my upcoming posts to discover my secret :P
Today happens to be Diwali – which is the Indian new year. We had a Diwali puja (prayer) at our office yesterday which was quite sweet. and probably the only ‘group’ thing we do as an office.
Diwali comes from the Sanskrit word Deepavali which means garland of lights. Quite literally Diwali is known to many as the ‘festival of lights’.
My mum has been on a frantic cleaning spree the last 2-3 days because Diwali is an occasion for cleaning; sprucing up the home; painting walls and decorating the floor with attractive rangoli designs. Rangoli is another Sanskrit word which signifying a creative expression of art by means of colours.
It’s been said that Rangoli is done outside the front door of the house so as to attract the Goddess Laxmi who brings wealth.
We’ve got our Diwali puja that’s going to start in a few minutes and I’ve just finished getting ready … Diwali is also quite an auspicious day to start any new ventures – so here’s some good wishes towards the start of my new consultancy as well – DMN Consultants =)
Before I leave you all and head for the puja, I’d like you to check out a previously written a post – Festival of Lights or Endangering the Environment which takes a look at the other side of the festivities that the majority of Indians partake in. As much as Diwali is a great celebration to start of a new year – we should consider the effects of our actions on the globe as a whole.
Wishing you all a Very Happy Diwali and a Prosperous New Year with lots of health, wealth and happiness coming your way !
This has got to be one of my newest all time favourite tracks. It’s a perfect blend of soulful beats. The acoustics – guitar, drums, and percussion – seem like they were made to complement each other to create the background score to the story of my life ! That’s how strongly I connect to the music. It is a deep, dynamic and utterly magical as far as I’m concerned !
The first time I heard this track was a couple of weeks ago and it was over the surround sound system in my living room and all I heard was this amazingly clear, crisp and warm vocal chord which sent shivers down my spine.
The acoustics more or less take over your senses and it feels like the beats are running through my veins. I can get lost in this tune … maybe I should try meditating to it … should help actually !
‘Nachtflug’ is a single released by Schiller- the main project of Christopher von Deylen – a German electronic music composer who produces music which can be considered trance and ambient.
This single was released in Germany in 2005 and is a part of the the album ‘Tag Und Nacht’ – which means Day & Night.
I realised that two other tracks that I’ve really enjoyed after a long time have been Schillers’; the most recent being ‘You’ which was a collaboration with singer Colbie Caillat and another with Wolfsheim titledDream Of You– both are MUST HEAR tracks :)
Happy Listening and don’t forget to let me know what you thought of the track !
As some of you know, I have been inspiredby Al Pitcher (a comedian who uses day-to-day photographs as a part of his comedy act) to come up with the Mumbai Moments Captured series (the first post being The Motorbiker Series) as I too have quite a few ad hoc images that I feel can only be seen in Mumbai (and around India) .. Now it’s time for the next instalment …
Drum Rolls …. Raising Curtains ….
It’s A Sign
I’ve come across quite a few funny signs and notices and thought it would be cool to share them with you all …
Earlier in January this year, I got a group together and headed off to Lonavala for my birthday. We were 3 cars who drove out together and we had so much alcohol between the cars, that honestly if there had been a road check at any point – we would have been stopped and questioned for hours on end !
On reaching Lonavala, we realised that we’re gonna need ICE for the drinks – and started asking around where we could find some …. An old man on the road pointed us into an alley / side street and we saw this sign ….
All of us must have pissed ourselves laughing … we could see the sign board for ice but there was NO ICE to be found anywhere ! Eventually, we found some men who were sitting by the first telephone pole behind the red cart who told us that they could send the ice over to the bungalow where the party was …
After receiving the ice, we were a bit too scared to actually use it for any sort of drinks as it arrived on this ratty truck on some tarp and had black bits all over it …. So ended up using it for chilling the drinks and spent more money & petrol sending my driver to the nearest hotel and taking coolers full of ice to use for the drinks.
The next few months were spent attending birthdays and weddings – so I didn’t focus too much on random photography however one sunny afternoon in May – I was hanging out in the Bandra area with my mate SG and we went for a walk on Bandstand. I’ve been in Bombay for 2 years now – and never realized that ‘dog parks’ exist in the city … Considering there are ‘barely’ any parks in the city – this one was a total surprise for me … and as a dog lover my curiosity got peaked and I had to check it out …
Aww doesn’t that look nice … a park for the doggies to play in :) Typically anywhere in the world – it’s quite common for pet owners to have to clean up after their pets when in a public area. I wasn’t quite sure how this would work in Mumbai considering that there is never a garbage bin when you need one !
Indians being the way they are – probably would never pick up after their pets because 1) the house-help is likely to be walking the dog 2) they are used to throwing garbage on the streets and with so many stray animals on the roads – what difference would it make if THEY cleaned up after their pets ?
So the dog parks came up with these nifty signs which I think should spread the word and make the message quite clear !
Then a couple of weeks ago, I ended up going for a drive to Khandala (which is on the way to Lonavala) with a mate of mine and came across these two very interesting signs on some passing trucks … I wonder who does the artwork and text copy for these sort of signs and why the hell they don’t bother with a spell or grammar check before sending their vehicles out …
This is of course of a milk truck … not the milk man van but a container or sorts …. I’m guessing the milk is getting sold to somebody since it’s being transported around – so why on earth does it say ‘MILK NOT FOR SELL’ …. Grammar check … ‘Milk Not For Sale’ …. I did have visions of how milk must be splashing around inside the container … and what if the inside had not been cleaned properly ??? I don’t even want to think about what happens to the milk in there …. Doesn’t milk have to be kept at a certain temperature ? That particular truck doesn’t exactly look like it has internal temperature control or nice fridges inside to store the milk ! Ewwwwwwwww
Soon after passing the Milk truck – we got caught in a slight traffic jam … actually more like a truck jam … and I came across this at the back of a truck … when I first took the photo I couldn’t really tell what was written on the sign …. A little bit of zooming and hanging out the window of the car and I finally got what I wanted to see …
Can you believe what you are reading ??? ‘Too many partners will take you to sorrowful life’ … now that’s just way too funny considering that the Indian society is all about monogamy and the sign on the truck in one way implies that ‘from experience – too many partners make life difficult’ thereby crossing out the notion that the Indian society is about monogamy !
That’s all from me folks – I’m working on the next piece for Mumbai Moments Captured – probably on animals and will share that with you very soon !
Whilst on my way to work on Wednesday, I ended up in a totally funky taxi ! He even had a radio in the car (seriously it’s a bonus if you ever find a cab with a radio!); and Red & Black Leather / Pleather covers on the seats … I felt like I was riding in a mate’s car !
To top it off – the radio turned out to be a CD player AND had a pretty neat sound system at the back … I had to take some pics of the taxi …
Here’s to hoping that all of Mumbai taxis are converted to be as funky as this one :)
I can’t believe we’re already in the first week of October ! In some ways I feel like the year has literally flown by .. and the past 2 weeks … I don’t know where they went !
In India there have have been 2 long weekends; 26th – 28th September and 1st-3rd October .. and I was working through BOTH of them …. Highly productive for me, but draining at the same time.
I also feel like I’ve been on a bit of a roller coaster the last few weeks … It’s been incident after incident that’s been hitting me in the face and on some level it has obviously affected me.
My colleague AA – who I have mentioned a few times before - left the company on 23rd September. I knew for months that he was looking at a change in jobs and when he finally made the decision to move – as much as I was expecting it – it was a surprise and upsetting. Not only would I lose a great colleague to work with – but also one of the first ‘friends’ I had made within my office. I have worked with him for exactly 2 years and the office feels weird without him sitting behind me.
24th September was the mark of 2 years of me having worked with my current employer … Normally such things are celebratory for me – but it actually slipped my mind … till the end of the day … I realised that over the years I have made an effort to remember any significant dates that hold meaning to those close to me … and funnily enough – other than my birthday – I can’t say that anyone has gone out of their way to remember something significant to me.
6th October was emotionally numbing ! My boss, mentor, and friend – HA – announced his departure from the company (ok he didn’t but our CEO said it on his behalf) ! I was in shock – so much so that I had to excuse myself, grab some tissue and dab away at my eyes … and then of course got on the phone with HA who was laughing at my reaction.
I spent a great deal of time with him in his cabin and we were just generally talking about what his plans were and how he is going to take things forward in his life. It’s a new beginning for him and I’m very happy for him because I know that he has the Midas Touch :)
Taking these two departures into consideration, I am left wondering ‘so what now for me’ …
There is turbulence lurking under the calm surface exterior.
It turned out to be a late night on Saturday as I was finishing off the final master interviews for the documentary that I have been taking part in.
Just so that you don’t feel completely confused and in-over your head .. The documentary gives you an insight into the lives andperceptions of an NRI living in India (me); an Indian girl – NB - who is born and raised in India and an NRI guy – AC - living overseas. The documentary goes on to look at each character’s perspectives on relationships and thoughts on arranged and love marriage.
As some of you know, I’ve also set myself up as a guinea pig whilst exploring the route to marriage by way of the typical Indian matchmaker / priest as well as a matrimonial website (and I’ve done this because in 2 years of being here – it just seems more complicated when it comes to meeting men who know what they want !)
I came to realise a few things …
No one is what they appear to be
I cannot and will not compromise my personality and who I am for ANYONE
I am not arranged marriage material
I already knew these things but now after taking part in the documentary – I just ‘know’ those things.
I got to hear a few things said by the male protagonist and somehow I just wasn’t surprised that a good looking, smart, educated male would go on to ‘talk down’ on the modern woman and her ways of life .. specifically – he was talking about ME !
This man – who has known me for all of a week perhaps – has spoken out about how he felt I was ‘clingy’, ‘could not take a hint that he was not interested’, ‘overly flirtatious’ and apparently ‘disrespectful to my mother’ !
This description is in the context of me being someone who is considering ‘an arranged marriage’ (and by arranged I don’t mean that I would just jump at whoever my parents point me at but in the sense that I’m at least open to the idea of meeting men who are interested in a serious LTR via my family / relatives etc)
That’s just a load of f**king crock mate ! At some point whilst I was being interviewed I eventually lashed out and pretty much cussed this man out.
Why ?? Because in his entire description of me – he failed to mention that HE made a MOVE ON ME - we kissed and fooled around a bit (and really it was just a bit!) and of course he totally forgot about that ! So I told it like it was ! The irony behind all of this was that I dropped him to the airport a few days later and even hung out with him for an hour in the waiting lounge where he pecked me good bye … Some people are just twisted in their thoughts. Maybe he should have thought about the fact that perhaps his actions led to me flirting more with him than I would normally do so.
This is why I’m not made for an arranged marriage scenario … there are too many ‘do’s & don’ts’ that one has to follow – especially the women … there’s way too much protocol on how one should behave, and what is considered acceptable in the company of a man who is looking to get married. That’s just rubbish as far as I go … who is the man trying to marry – ME or the FAKE ME who has to pretend to be someone that the guy would ‘want to’ marry ??
In one of my previous posts I wrote “You can be assured that the other person is never actually going to understand your view point because they are mentally just not ready to accept anything beyond their personal experiences and understanding”
In another post, I wrote about Actions & Interpretations – and I honestly believe it holds true especially with the newfound knowledge I have of this man – who I thought was a pretty cool guy. His actions – intentional or not (and he’d have to be pretty thick not to realise that everything he says is going to be shown on TV and people will make assumptions and my family will also watch this!) – have condoned any future of even a friendship between us.
I wrotea poem – Actions - quite a few years ago which I reckon summarizes the situation.
Apologies to all for the rant – but I was really annoyed about this ! I don’t judge you – you don’t judge me - is it that hard a concept to grasp ??
Life – Relationships – People and Perceptions … it’s all about the ugly truth isn’t it ?
Went to watch this movie last week and it was (in my humble opinion) bloody brilliant ! A quick synopsis of the movie would be along the lines of …..
A fairly attractive TV producer, Abby Richter (Katherine Heigl) who is a slightly neurotic control freak comes head-to-head with her new hard core TV anchor Mike Chadway (Gerald Butler) who promises to spill the ugly truth on what makes men and women tick !
When I first heard about the movie – I thought it might be one of those total rom-coms which I am definitely not into … I didn’t even go to check it out in its opening week … It was a total last minute decision to go watch a movie after work … apparently quite a few other co-workers thought the same thing as I bumped into them outside by the ticket booth.
This movie is ‘in your face’ with enough vulgar humour to entertain a ship full of horny sailors ! In fact Butlers’ character is the epitome of crass ! He totally objectifies women and basically guides men on how to get their mack on ! It is hilarious though ! Everyone in the theatre were cracking up !
Sure the critique in me noticed a few continuity errors but they were a bit minor and most of the audience would be too involved in the actual scene to notice it … I did think the movie lacked a stronger adhesive to keep it together – the scenes kept jumping into a another picture almost.
I mean come on … how does a woman who can’t stand the obnoxious behaviour of a man suddenly be able to confide in him her fears of forming a relationship AND allow him to take her shopping on the same day ! There could have been a bit more of a build-up to the story behind that.
The idea of the Ugly Truth has been playing in my head for a few days now … in fact I should have posted this last week but didn’t get around to it … I have a few theories of my own which I’ll share over the next few weeks.
Until then, if you haven’t seen the movie – go and check it out – it’s worth the laugh =)
So it’s been a ‘not so good morning’ for me … and it’s coming to lunch time … and I have found some Cardboard Love … If you haven’t heard about this site, then I urge you to go and visit it … I can guarantee that you will get a warm and fuzzy feeling from the time you enter the site …
I saw this and I smiled … my first smile for today and it only took 7 hours from the time I woke up to find a reason to smile.
Everything will go away if I could be held right now … Yup .. that’s what I need …
My morning started off quite badly … My mood went from
‘Good Morning Peeps’
to
‘yeah remove the good from the morning’
and then to
‘feeling disillusioned by all around me’ …
Is it possible to have Thursday morning ‘blahs’ ?
It didn’t look or even feel like my day would get remotely better … the air around me seems sort of heavy (or maybe it’s the quarter bottle of vodka I drank last night by myself – no not by ‘myself’ but I had vodka whilst AA, my friend / colleague had a quarter bottle of Teachers whiskey since it was his last day in the office) …
I’m not hung over – nowhere close to it. The morning started off with me wanting some bagels only to be told that the bagels I had bought yesterday had been eaten by others at home … No biggie – peanut butter and jam sandwich should work … My mother came in to meet me … that conversation took a random turn and got pretty heated … it was nothing serious but I think it affected me …
Of course it affected me – no wonder I’m feeling this way … the frustration that was within me seemed to keep building up … I could feel the tears of accumulate behind the whites of my eyes … wanting a release … I stood under the shower – washing my hair – and waited for some sort of epiphany but no such luck … (speaking of ‘release’ – AA would totally be shouting out ‘Release Me’ right about now and making fun of me !)
Between wanting to shout out some profanities and just get the hell out of my house … I still felt trapped … I left home today and didn’t say bye to my mother … my father as usual didn’t exactly acknowledge my greeting or goodbye … No wonder I get worked up on family related debates !
I got lost in random thoughts – even more than I usually do on my way to work … It’s like I’ve reached the cross road of my life … which way do I turn ?? Lately I seem to be fighting this internal battle – and I’m probably not even all aware of it …
I miss my boys right now more than ever … especially since it was JA’s birthday yesterday … didn’t even get to speak to him as he was with family …
Now to find something else to distract me from this mood …
I came across a great post on Primer magazine titledThe Politics of Texting : New Technology, New Dramaby Adam Baxter and it instantly conjured up an image of a round table discussion I was having with a group of friends whilst filming for the documentary that I participated in.
The subject of conversation that day included the implications of putting an ‘x’ at the end of a text message and more so about how my friends and I (who are all technically NRI’s who have moved to India recently) found that some people really ‘read into’ the smallest details behind text messages.
I’ve actually had a conversation with a girlfriend who analysed the way a guy had sent me a text and what it meant … That’s right – she looked at whether or not he put a smiley or a winky or the cheeky tongue (=P) ..
My first hand look at the art of flirting by text ! Apparently all those mean that a guy / girl is showing signs of affection and being flirty … to me .. that’s just the way I normally text … with expression.
The person on the receiving end is unable to see my face nor can they hear my tone of voice – and depending on the way the message is written (all lower case; all caps which is the equivalent of ‘shouting’) it very well could come out the wrong way. I can be quite sarcastic when I joke around, so I tend to put =P or ;) or LOL (laughs out loud) thus allowing the recipient to know my mood and frame of mind when I send the message.
According to SG, one of my guy friends “a message with an ‘x’ is better than a message without an ‘x’ especially when it’s from a person whom you know as it brings a smile to my face and makes you feel that the person cares for you.” At the same time – he doesn’t think too much about whether he’s putting smiley faces or ‘x’s – because his friends will understand what he actually means.
Another friend AA, reckons that if the recipient is a chilled out / open minded individual – they wouldn’t really read into the ‘x’ at the end of a message … however a person who is a bit more conservative will look further into it and wonder ‘why’ would someone use such a ‘personal expression’ ….
Personally, I will only put ‘x’, ‘xxx’, ‘xoxo’ or ‘mwaah’ at the end of a text if I know the person very well – regardless if they are male or female – single or in a relationship. I don’t think too much about it. I will NOT however do that with just ‘anyone’ especially if I get the impression that the other party might even be remotely interested in me – I don’t want to give off the wrong impression.
The problem with text messages as highlighted in the above article is that the ‘meaning behind’ the SMS is lost or often misunderstood. Why ? Because we all have a different perspective on how we look at and digest information given to us.
I’ve noticed that since moving to Mumbai, India – almost EVERYONE I know seems to communicate using text messages, IM’s, Facebook or Twitter and no one seems to believe in picking up the phone and ‘talking’ to each other!
There have been occasions over the last 2 years where I’ve actually had to sit back and assess a few of the text messages I have received and tried to figure out exactly what they mean or imply. e.g. when I first got here, a guy I’d met who seemed quite into me – would call me quite a bit; and then as we both got busy with work – the ‘texting’ came about … and for the life of me I had no idea if this man was still flirting or if he was even interested. I’m just not ‘used to’ having conversations with people over ‘texts’ !
Just yesterday whilst writing this post, it struck me that this guy KB that I’m getting to know – for the past month has always called me ‘diva’ in his messages … yeah that didn’t happen yesterday. Coincidentally – I barely heard from him all day except for a minutes in the morning (so at least he was taking my calls). Later in the day – I sent him a message (yeah I’m guilty for doing that) telling him to ‘cheer up – it was the end of the day – and as his messages came across as frustrated’ … No response ! (Don’t blame him either)
Basically I got ‘used to’ the fact that he addressed me in a certain way and it was out of my comfort zone when he didn’t .. it made me wonder - ‘is all ok’ …. I know I don’t need to think that way – however for the purpose of this post – I allowed my mind to wonder about it. I still sent him a ‘good morning’ message today … and I got a ‘diva’ this morning woohoo !
Oh and ironically – just the other day I told this same guy that ‘I felt that for some reason I couldn’t just pick up the phone and call him as I would with others as I feel I might be interrupting his work’ to which he told me not to worry and just call him at any time and if he couldn’t talk he would let me know …
It’s an obvious – stares in your face – fact. From my social circle, I’d say that 6 out of 10 use short handSMS or acronyms whilst chatting ‘online’ i.e text message, IM, and email.
I absolutely detest receiving messages in short hand. I really do. I find it annoying to read and decipher messages in a combination of upper and lower case characters and what looks and reads like atrocious grammatical errors ! But unfortunately for me – the rest of the population around me don’t care a damn because short hand SMS is now perfectly acceptable ! *sigh*
In essence,Social Networks are Changing Conversation. There is no shortage of communication between people - email, instant messaging, and text messages, but there is a definite shortage of clear and concise human communication – basically we now lack theart of conversation!
It just seems these days, that the only people I speak to are my ‘good friends’ whilst texting is when I can’t really be bothered to ‘speak’ to the other party. Intellectual conversation seems to be a dying art form according to me – at least around the people I am surrounded by because everyone is so damn busy with their own lives. During the day, whilst at work – when I feel like exercising my vocabulary skills, then I will either text / IM / FB message my friends (depending on how and where they came to mind) – however the majority of the time – we end up in a conversation over MSN or Gtalk so that we are able to at least multi-task and get work done at the same time. Personally I don’t indulge in too many personal ‘calls’ whilst at work.
To highlight my point, luckily I found some valid stats about this on an article in the Business Standard.Furthermore, VitalAnalytics states that India is currently the second largest mobile market in the world after China, and nearly 10-12 million mobile subscribers are added monthly in the country.
Do you realise the implication of just how many text messages are sent out on daily basis ? No wonder people are getting confused and mixed signals about text messages and their deep dark hidden mysteries !
For those that ‘read into’ the messages that you receive – my only advice to you is ‘Don’t Do It’ ! Especially if you live in a multi-cultural environment – there are people from all sorts of backgrounds and each culture has their own way of communicating – with or without the ‘x’s and ‘mwaahs’ and ‘hugs’ … So don’t dwell too much and just take the message for what it is … read it but don’t read into it !
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