A Near Miss ...

And Finally ..., Diary 5 Responses »
Jul 302010

…. this morning.
It was a normal Friday morning. Got up bright and early to get to college. Finished lectures. Began driving from Sophia College to Bandra.
Just as soon as you get out of the main gate at Sophia, you drive down a narrow winding road to get to Warden Road – then Worli, then Bandra. Usually it is fairly smooth driving.

When i got to the end of the narrow road, the road had narrowed to 1.5 lanes. there were trucks parked on the right of the road – construction trucks – that were brining building material. Some of the old bunglows on this road are making way for high rises.

There was a signal, a few cars ahead of me, and I was waiting for the lights to turn to green. In the side view mirror I saw a truck rolling back. There was no place to move. The only place to go was ahead, and there were vehicles there. I pulled the hand brake. And waited.

Crunch. I heard glass go crunch. Trust me, it is a scary audio effect. The video was worse. A few tons coming down slowly against your car. And suddenly it stopped rolling. Someone had obviously pulled the hand brake on the truck. I could hear my heart thumping, my hands shaking and my brain slightly off kilter.

The lights changed to green. I moved out. Turned onto Warden Road, pulled over and checked for damage. The body of my car is fine but for a dent. The rear lights on the drivers side, and the tiny window on the rear were shattered. The truck was coming down at an angle -would have probably hit the driver. Was terribly lucky.

The shakes came later. I drove for a bit. pulled over at worli sea face and sat in the car for around 20 minutes till i came back to normal. Then i drove home to leave the car and get to work !

Sometimes, it doesn’t help just being a good driver, or even a safe one. It’s also a matter of luck…. Today I got lucky.

p.s. it is a good job that the Tata’s build their cars like tanks. :) the Indigo Marina (that i drive) is a battle vehicle. we should possibly send it to the front !

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Posted by gargi at 4:03 pm Tagged with:

Raindrops Falling...

Photographs 4 Responses »
Jul 162010

Raindrop

One of the things that I do love about the monsoons, is the way my little window garden comes alive …

raindrops

I do love shooting raindrops … here is one I shot last year (or was it year before), from inside the car … This monsoons, since I am driving, I have stopped carrying a camera. Can’t afford to get distracted while driving, and like taking pics too much to not pull out a camera at a signal :)

This year the monsoons have been decent. But, the roads — less said about them the better. The BMC, if it was writing exams, would be repeating a year. On second thoughts, if it means putting up with this inefficiency for one more year, maybe it may be better to pass them !!

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Posted by gargi at 9:54 pm Tagged with: ,

Debt v/s Debit

Desi Pundit, India, Media, Mumbai, News, Print 10 Responses »
Mar 312010

The kind of stuff that makes you choke over your breakfast. This from the world’s most read English Language Newspaper.

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Posted by gargi at 10:29 pm Tagged with: , , , ,

Mumbai - Apollo Bunder

Desi Pundit, Mumbai, Photographs No Responses »
Mar 162010

mumbai coastline 6

A frame filled with History

On the right is the “Gateway of India” – built to welcome King George the V – at the height of power of the British Raj. It also marked the point from which the last British troops left India – marking the decline of the British Raj.

On the left (with the pinkish dome) is the Taj Mahal Hotel – the flagship hotel of the Taj Group. Built by Jamshedji Tata. Legend has it the architectural designs were read the wrong way around – leading to the hotel being built the wrong way around (seriously). Legend also has it that Jamshedji Tata saw a board in a Brit club that said “no dogs or Indians” and built this as a symbol of Indian self respect.

It was also the scene of one of the world’s most public terrorist attacks – when a bunch of Pakistani trained terrorists burst into the Taj with guns and grenades and massacred innocents. Somehow, the scene of the dome going up in flames had most of us in tears – I know that i couldn’t stop the tears – something about my city being bled …

In the middle – is the New Taj – the old and the new are also called the Beauty and the Beast

mumbai coastline 2

The Longshot

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Posted by gargi at 9:02 pm Tagged with: , , , ,

In Memorium - 12/3 Bombay Blasts

Desi Pundit, India, Mumbai, Pakistan, Politics, Society, terror 2 Responses »
Mar 122010

March 12th 1993. A time when Mumbai was still Bombay. Lokhandwalla was a set of buildings in progress, where gangs regularly went to war. Where In Orbit & Hypercity Malad were rubbish dumps, when the expressway didn’t exist, when Asiatic and Akbarally’s were great malls and when Phoenix was a shut down mill !

March 12th 1993, a set of blasts that shook Mumbai to the core. Buildings blasted, people vaporized and the sense of innate security that citizens of this metropolis had torn to shreds. In all,

A series of bomb blasts ripped through 13 places in the city, killing 257 people and injuring 713. These were the first blasts in which RDX was used and the explosions were allegedly planned by underworld don Dawood Ibrahim.

This was before the 24/7 news era – and therefore the term 12/3 has not passed into popular lexicon ! No body remembers the anniversary or places flowers at key places where the bombs went off and people died

Locations attacked include (dead in brackets)

* Fisherman’s Colony in Mahim causeway[15]
* Zaveri Bazaar[12]
* Plaza Cinema[12]
* Century Bazaar[12]
* Katha Bazaar[12]
* Hotel Sea Rock[12]
* Sahar Airport[12]
* Air India Building[12]
* Hotel Juhu Centaur[12]
* Plaza Theatre near Shiv Sena HQ[16]
* Lucky Petrol near Shiv Sena HQ[16]
* Worli[17]
* Bombay Stock Exchange Building[10]
* Hotel Centaur, Santa Cruz[16]
* Area opposite of Century Bazaar[13]
* Passport Office[18]

I was a student at that time, away in London. I heard about it on the BBC. I was terrified. My dad worked in Air India Building, my brother studied at Xaviers, my mom taught at Sophia’s – all in town, and both passing the passport office en route to our home. It was a different time – no instant messaging, no net, no twitter – and the land lines were impossible to get through to …..

My mother told me about this BEST bus that was blown up near the passport office. many commuters were 12th standard students, who having finished their HSC exams were returning to their respective homes. Not enough scraps were found for last rites.

SR pointed me out to a spot next to Sena Bhavan – the site of a petrol pump – where a bomb failed to go off. Had it gone off the whole area would have been levelled .

The foot soldiers behind the blast were sentenced a few years ago. Those who planned it still run free.

The BBC’s coverage -

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Posted by gargi at 9:18 am Tagged with: , , , , , , ,

The Edge of Darkness !

Photographs 2 Responses »
Mar 042010

shooting 2

shooting the crew, shooting at Madh.

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Posted by gargi at 7:03 am Tagged with: , ,

26/11 - just another date....

Desi Pundit, India 10 Responses »
Nov 262009

November has been an eventful month in terms of remembrances. So much so that i have forgotten half the things that we are supposed to remember.  The most noise however, was for Nehru’s & then Indra Gandhi’s  birth anniversary, the Babri Masjid Demolition – thanks to the tabling of the Liberhan committee report and now 26/11.

Like practically everything else that we do — we have lost the essence and the learnings of these people and events — and have reduced all the incidents to rituals – flowers, words, tributes …. but, not much else .

The old afflictions remain :

  • Our leadership is  still dis united on core issues- everything is a party political issue . Political Capital is to be gained on every little event. National interest be damned.
  • Corruption is still rampant – and National Security will be damned unless that is checked.
  • We Still want to wail from rooftops on being the victim – it is time that we stopped being victimised and started fighting back.
  • Our Media is still sensational – polarising opinion deliberately for ratings. Divide & Rule still rules
  • We still don’t care about people who are not like us. Which is why 26/11 is important and other dates when people died due to terror are not. Which is why the Taj and the Trident are important, but VT is not.
  • Life is cheap. the poorer the life, the cheaper it is
  • We don’t believe in responsibility and accountability. It is always someone else’s fault. Always.
  • Rules are for others – not for us
  • And finally, the most dangerous of them all – for us talk is action. We are so happy with bluster that we forget that action is needed so that what ever we say is taken seriously.

If we want to prevent other such 26/11′s – maybe we need to introspect . maybe we need to fix things within.  None of us can prevent a madman with a death wish from blowing himself up and us with him — what we can prevent is responses that make us like him.

Maybe the greatest tribute that we can give those who have died is to ensure that we don’t make cosmetic changes or have knee jerk responses — but ensure that in the long term we are a safe and secure country that doesn’t allow the murder of citizens to go unpunished

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Posted by gargi at 9:22 am Tagged with: , , , ,

ToI believes in Life after Death

Desi Pundit, Media, News, Print 4 Responses »
Oct 022009

rather boring three days. was at holy spirit for death by boredom and a zillion and one tests. caught up on reading and actually read the newspapers instead of getting a RSS feed. Almost died of a heart attack when i saw this :

toi headline

i can’t make up stuff like this :)

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Posted by gargi at 10:48 pm Tagged with: , ,

Markets

Culture, Desi Pundit, India, Photographs 6 Responses »
Aug 112009

Confession Time. I don’t like buying food – especially vegetables – in malls. Never have. I find their sanitized organization scary.

Even when I stayed in London, I would trudge down to the local market and pick up fresh veggies from the guy with a barrow than go to a Sainsbury’s and pick out the pretty looking stuff sitting on their shelves. Don’t know why – maybe it’s the smell of mint or coriander, or the bustle of activity, or bargaining or whether it is congregation of different types of people in the market – I don’t know. But, i gravitate towards a vegetable market.

Back in India, the market place is a whole different ecosystem. It is alive, it is fun, and it is so damn vibrant – that you can stay and watch and just take in the smells and sounds the whole day long. Stuff that I really can’t do in a mall -unless I am at Landmark spending a fortune on books.

Today while getting back from my lectures at Sophia’s I stopped out at Dadar to visit the wholesale market. There is a great satisfaction in picking up 2.5 kilos of baby potatoes for Rs.30, or half a kilo of beans for Rs.10, or even a giant bunch of coriander for Rs.8.

Dadar vegetable market is not a place that you take a camera into, not unless you don’t want to buy vegetables. But there are other markets that you can – especially when dad and mom are in tow selecting and buying.

Vile Parle (East) vegetable market is great fun. It is usually on a Sunday that i go there- twinned with a visit to the Parleshwar temple – one of my favourite temples in Mumbai. Parle is slightly steep in terms of pricing – but, the vegetables are yum.

Greens are Good for You, and so is Spinach...
Just outside the station – on the pavements on either side are a whole host of vegetable sellers – selling their wares. It’s usually a crowd by evening – but if you get in by 5 – it’s quite peaceful.

The Tomato Seller

The guys at Parle, don’t stand for too much haggling – it’s pretty much a take it or leave it policy – unless you go to the vegetable sellers with the baskets, as opposed to the vegetable sellers with the stalls.

The Vegetable Stall

But, by far my favorite vegetable market is in Lonavala. Close to the station and close to home. When i go there for weekends, sometimes i pick up vegetables. It comes from Nahik, and is tastier – they claim. and it does – whether it is the power of suggestion or genuine, I can’t tell – but they are very, very tasty.

greens are good for you

Again, its not a place in which you can bargain, but a bargain you will definitely get :)

VEGGIES

The next time you fancy a mixed vegetable pulao or a salad, or just tasty vegetables, do pop down to your nearest mandi - and you will get more than refrigerated freshness – you will get truly fresh !

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Posted by gargi at 11:08 pm Tagged with: , , , , , , ,

Post 26/11 - Media Self Regulation

India 2 Responses »
Dec 182008

This announced today

Under the six-point guidelines framed by the umbrella body NBA (News Broadcasters Association), the channels shouldn’t be telecasting details of identity, number and status of hostages. Nor should they provide information of pending rescue operations or details on the number of security personnel involved or the methods employed by them.

The News Broadcasting Standards Disputes Redressal Authority, constituted by the NBA, today said television TV channels should avoid any “live contact with the victims or security personnel or other technical personnel involved or the perpetrators during the course of any incident.”

Addressing a press meet, Authority Chairman Justice JS Verma also said media should avoid “unnecessary repeated or continuous broadcast of archival footage that may tend to re-agitate the mind of the viewers. Archival footage, if shown, should clearly indicate ‘file’ and the date and time should be given where feasible.”

The Authority said “no live reporting should be made that facilitates publicity of any terrorist or militant outfit or its ideology or tends to evoke sympathy for the perpetrators or glamourises them or their cause or advances the illegal agenda or objectives of the perpetrators.”

The dead should also be treated with dignity and their visuals should not be shown. Special care should be taken in the broadcast of any distressing visuals and graphics showing grief and emotional scenes of victims and relatives which could cause distress to children and families.

At the outset, the Authority said all telecast of news relating to armed conflict, internal disturbance, communal violence, public disorder, crime and other similar situations should be tested on the touchstone of ‘public interest’.

Furthermore, the media had the responsibility to disseminate information which was factually accurate and objective.

more on indiantelevision.com

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Posted by gargi at 10:20 pm Tagged with: , , , , , , ,
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