Life is easy kya karein

Jaipur 'Junoon' is still there in my head. I am simply not able to forget our Jaipur holiday. 'Junoon' translated loosely means madness or craziness. It is not the exact meaning but the best I could manage. I seem to compare my shopping experience with Jaipur. I accompanied my visiting relatives to a few boutiques in Mumbai.Thank Heavens for the 'Firangi' accent and a genuine one at that, that we were treated well in all shops. I have this Mantra of putting lipstick when I go shopping. Cant do much about the clothes I am wearing but my lipstick helps me to be treated well by most sales people in stores, malls and boutiques. The attitude is, they check you out and decide on their own that you are not a customer but a browser. Then the subtle rejection is there for all to notice. One experiences this as an Indian when one goes abroad even though Indian tourists spend a lot on shopping, the sales people will treat a fair skinned Caucasian better. This is the arro...

Anokhi Cafe did not get mentioned in the last out for just one reason: The children did not like the food. We loved the vibe of the place and the fresh salads from Anokhi Farms. The menu did have pastas and sandwiches and the Falafel was good too. Children are not used to the tomato sauce with farm fresh tomatoes. Mumbai children can only dress well and know how to use the latest gadgets. The outside world is alien to them. Mumbai is the easiest city to live in. People are so helpful and the city is safe. Here the working women culture has been there for years. So all help is attuned to catering to them. And Mumbai s convenience has been there much before the super markets, Malls and the helpful websites like concierge services, arrived. Here right from the building watchman to your watch repair shop to the local grocer will help you beyond their core business or service. People are approachable. The only time you can get lost in Mumbai is when you are using Google Maps. People are y...

December is a lovely time to visit Jaipur. It is a manna for the cold starved Mumbaikars. The city is buzzing with holiday makers and yet it is so unlike one of our metropolitan cities. Jaipur has character, as my little one would say 'Bhar Bhar ke', which means, loads of it.  We loved the restaurant Tapri in Jaipur. Tapri is a terrace / rooftop restaurant in the heart of the city, close to all the sightseeing places. The crowd is electric and the food is fresh and warm. The open terrace tables are in huge demand. You get the view of the twinkling stars, and our National flag flying high in the park. Lot of wedding plots in the vicinity which we could peep into. Kept wondering when the crowd will start trickling in as it was getting cold in the night. But the local people have late night weddings and the cold doesn't t bother them as there is a lot of bling and metal around. Small bonfires are set up all over the lawns to keep the guests warm . In Tapri, if you want t...

Uber rides have added a new dimension to my life. Most drivers are relaxed and willing to talk. They are not complaining or cribbing about the traffic or the weather. They seem to be enjoying their work. From our end, we seem to be treating them better. That seems to be the case when we pay more money for a service which we got cheaper earlier. Is this a combination of  better customer service and well behaved customers? This ride was in the evening to collect my child from a birthday party. Traversing the Mumbai evening traffic and keeping your calm, is the stuff legends are made of. The driver, Altaf, said he has seen very rich days. They had the largest bungalow in Mahim, near Mahim Dargah. His grandmother used to sit on a mattress which was lined with bundles of currency notes. The drums which we use for storage of water, they had it full of 'chillar' i.e. coins. In today's currency value, their income was two lac rupees per day. They lost it due to some reason. H...

It was my youngest niece's birthday. The celebratory lunch was at a restaurant in Powai. I have always had a problem going to this far flung suburb of Mumbai. I have traveled there when I was working and the first of the offices were moving to Powai. We, in hotel sales, full of our uppity attitude, were scandalised to the core of our crepe sarees and block heels. Powai was where IIT and Powai lake was. This was our knowledge of Powai. Hiranandani building flats there never mattered to someone living in a hostel. I never ever dreamt of buying my own house. A house, a foreign holiday or an SUV or a high end watch were never in my purview of things.  I do not think the word SUV was prevalent in those days. I only knew Jeep and Gypsy. Jeep was a police vehicle for me. Gypsy was made by Maruti, the coolest automobile car manufacturer, during my teens. A Gypsy ride was 'the' thing to happen in life. The foreign cars which people owned were bought from some crooked agents or sec...

We are seeing the new generation being so tech savvy. They know everything to do with gadgets and are so good at adapting to newer versions of gadgets and apps. I have that kind of adaptability to kitchens. I can cook comfortably in any kitchen. It has to do with me visiting relatives as a child with my Dadi, Grandmother. When we visited people, it was natural to help them in the kitchen or in chopping vegetables or folding clothes or cleaning wheat and rice. Yes, we had unpolished grains which were not branded as 'organic' and we had to remove little mud and small stones from the grains. First the lady of the house used a tray called ' Soop' pronounced as 'soup', to clean the grains. Around half kilograms was taken in the 'soop' and the grain was thrown up in the air and collected back in the soop. This helped in removing the dirt from the grains. The dirt fell back from the air in the front portion of the 'soop' and the grains came back. Wome...

In Jharia, all our rooms had ventilators. The way the houses had doors and windows, similarly it had small square openings high up in the walls, closer to the ceiling. The ventilators provided air in the room even if the doors and windows were closed. The ventilators were like a little box window with a pattern which was a part of the wall. The pattern were not checks or stripes but usually floral or paisley. Every house had a different pattern depending on the mason who made it. The ventilators on the outer walls of the house, had birds making nests there. During winters sometimes people covered the pattern by stuffing old newspapers in it, to prevent the cold draft from coming in the room. Our Jharia house had ventilators in the inside facing walls of the house too. Usually the ventilator was made above the window or the door but in some cases, it was on the opposite walls to allow cross circulation of air. The ceilings were much higher in the old bungalows and houses. Some of our ...