Mumbai..City that never sleeps

Mumbai is often compared with NewYork for its diversity, financial strength, celebrities, public transport, high cost of living, crimes, etc. In the last 3-4 months of my stay at Mumbai, I have observed some unique good points about Mumbai.

• The common citizens ( not politicians!) demonstrate a relatively higher level of social responsibility, example:Involvement in reduction of plastic usage. Most of the road side fruit and vegetable vendors, small groceries do not offer you plastic bags!
• Excellent Public Transport: Without BEST and local trains, picture of Mumbai is incomplete. The government, railway and various organizations work closely in ensuring no disruptions (barring few exceptions)
• Apartment societies: Mumbai being the 'apartment' capital of India, renting/owning an apartment is made easy. Though living in apartment has few disadvantages, a newcomer to the city will have lesser difficulties in setting up a house
• Numerous eat out options: There are numerous options from road side vada pav to five star hotels. The peak time for most fine dining restaurants are between 9:30pm-11:30 pm on the week days!

There are still more points...but stopping here...

Doctor Visit

Though it was a minor ailment of throat infection, I did not want to land up with other 'special' effects like cold or fever. Though new to Mumbai, I had observed few doctor clinics during my daily commute to work. I landed up at one such clinic, the doc was a diabetologist ( hope i got the spell correct!).

My first question to the lady at the front desk "Does the doctor treat ordinary throat infection cases"? Yes! came the response. The rest of the visit was over in next 5 mins during which the doctor performed diagnosis, seemed more curious to know who sent me there and where I live. His diagnosis, body language showed he's a true professional. He asked me if I would want to pick up the medicine as well from the same clinic? "why not, I said". The front desk promptly prepared a small packet that had 2-3 types of tablets!.

That reminded me of our first family doctor Azeez Ahmed in Wilson Garden, Bangalore. After diagnosis, Dr Azeez would offer the tablets and some kind of liquid medicine, which was dispensed in dark small bottles!. He would personally prepare that liquid medicine, mixing samples from 2-3 large bottles.

Happy Deepawali!

Wish all those reading my blog, a very happy deepawali. I am celebrating deepawali in India after a break of over 5-6 years. I noticed now there is more festival spirit, higher spending on crackers and sweets. Beyond this, the automotive and the consumer electronics companies are offering tempting deals to the customers, reminding me of the Thanks Giving occasion in the USA. I think very soon, we'll have a black friday kind of sale during deepawali eve!

Mumbai Sight Seeing

I worked for a Mumbai based company a decade ago. I was lucky enough to have a lot of friends in Mumbai who worked with me earlier. We would get together once in a while and go visit places. My Hyderabad roomies Anil and Mahesh were also there in Mumbai and Anil had self declared fan of Mumbai and unofficial tour guide. One Sunday evening, we set out first to Marine drive, walked about 2-3 kms and then went to the Bandra Band Stand Area. After going around the obvious places, we walked in the fashion street ( not sure of the name now) and visited a famous old church in the same area. We spent about 30 mins in the church and headed to Prabhadevi, to the famous Siddivinayak temple. The temple required no introduction as Anil had created a virtual image in our minds. It was around 7:15 PM when we got in to temple, an announcement was made that the temple doors will be closed for aarthi. We assembled in the prayer hall and I could tell there were more than 200 people. Soon, the aarthi started, the 200 people in the hall sang the bhajans which were in Marathi and Sanskrit. The entire place had so much energy and the audience was completely immersed. The audience continued to stand and chant the bhajans for over 30 minutes, the drum beats in the back ground added more rhythm!!. I became an instant fan of this temple and have not missed visiting this temple whenever I go to Mumbai.

Coming to our original story, after consuming the prasad, we headed back to the Dadar Railway Station and we were hungry. Anil was alcohol hungry, we ended up in a small bar and Anil had a mug of beer. In one day, we had completed a pilgrimage trip and signed off in a bar!!

Bangalore's worst flyover at K.R.Puram

I spend like approximately 1 hour each way in my daily commute and I don't complain because I get on to work as I soon as get in, my driver will take care of the wheels. The traffic is by and large flows through, the stretch around the KR Puram takes around 20-25 minutes. This is one of the most chaotic intersections in the outer ring road where there is a railway station, an ocean of pedestrians trying to board buses towards white field road, hoskote and further. The great hanging bridge across the railway station sits there waiting to help....I wonder why the flyover designers wanted to have the outer ring road merge in to old madras road and again take a deviation!!.

The return journey through this stretch is the rewind of the onward events. It is very interesting to note there is at least one vehicle breakdown in that stretch every evening!!

STD/ISD Phone Booths in Bangalore

About 15 years ago in Bangalore, you would find the STD/ISD pay phone booths almost every 50 meters in the residential and commercial neighborhoods. Over the last 5-6 years, cell phone penetration is so high the the phone booths are phased out. I remember the day after I returned from the USA. I had some urgent official international phone calls to make. It took me more than half an hour to locate a phone booth. It took me couple of days to get my own cell phone with international calling options. While the earlier phone booths are phased out, they are compensated with the "yellow" pay phones for making local phones. These are installed in many groceries, restaurants and public places.

So is the case of internet cafe - with the entry of so many ISP and wireless services, cyber cafes faced the heat and many of them are out of business now.

Update: March 2013: Applies more to India
The way people use their cell phones has changed dramatically since last 3-4 years. Smart phones have literally phased out the home phones in all segments; urban, semi-urban and some rural areas. The person living in a semi-urban place now has a facebook account and there are the subsidized internet packages available on a daily basis!. The most rural areas are better served by cell phone networks than the basic telephone framework. There might come a day when a newborn baby is "assigned" a cell number, just like the social security number and may be used for tracking all the life events from then on :)

Aayo Rama!

"A...a...y...o R...a...m....a" : A tired man, a guy having difficulty getting up after sitting for long time, an angry mother unhappy with her kid's tantrums. All these people utter this phase, it is hard to tell whether it's voluntary or not. Well, this particular expression is very popular with kannada speaking people in India.

Other phrases or expressions people make when they are in the situation like above, "Rama Rama", Shiva Shiva, Panduranga, Sairam. Aayo Rama happens to be most popular with the people. I am not sure what's popular in the other Indian states.

The Indian gods must now be tired of helping people who have orthopedic issues, the younger generation does not involve the gods for such "simple" tasks. "Shucks", "Shit" or f... is enough for these guys... :)

IT journey from Ameerpet, Hyderabad

IT journey from Ameerpet, Hyderabad

Astrology & India

Astrology and India have strong connection since thousands of years. Kings were known to have a team of astrologers advising him in strategic decisions. Common people took help of astrologers to plan important events of life like match making ( horoscope matching), marriage dates finalization, house warming, child naming, baby showers, etc. While there is a significant portion of the people who don't believe, I think there is a strong following too.The present day astrologers have specializations matching the present generation needs; a) Education & Married life; b) Internet consultations;c)Politics; d)Corporate astrology/numerology; e)Vaastu Shastra; f) Naadi Shastra; e)Bollywood/Sandalwood movie naming; many more. While the low profile astrologers continue to operate from the word of mouth or referrals, the big time players use different advertising channels like print, television, internet to reach the masses. The advertising for internet/telephonic consultations have gained momentum in the last 5 years, especially in the US.The indian politicians are known to take astrological predictions/recommendations very seriously. Deve Gowda is known to offer puja/homa quite often, while Jayalalitha changed her name to get lucky. Some chief ministers are known to seek some structural changes to their residential quarters based on the vaastu recommendations.The genuine sounding revelations I have heard are related to the Naadi Shastra recitations. I believe there is a particular group of Naadi Shastra readers ( will add location details later) from Tamil Nadu, who are capable of revealing your past, present and the future - all looking at your thumb impression or finger print. I heard they can get your dad/mom/wife/sis/brother(s) names so accurately that it is hard to believe - Please note there are a lot of fake Naadi Shastra readers, so check around before you consult one!

Portland - Florence Trip

Our recent trip to Florence, OR was quickly planned within 2-3 days. Our travel involved 15 adults and 4 kids. While the guys worked out the logistics and the trip schedule, the ladies put together a quick plan finalizing the menu for breakfast, lunch and dinner. The trip was eventful from the word "go". Some GPS systems could not navigate to the final destination. We had some official work to care during the trip. The first evening pot luck followed by drinks was awesome and relaxing. Saturday morning was a Rava Idly mela - more than 100 idlies were made and consumed. The guys enjoyed the ATV rides in the sand dunes. The families with kids took the bus ride in to sand dunes...this is was breath taking as the bus ride up and down the sand dunes provided a good sight seeing and a thrilling ride.

The spot light of the trip of the kayaking!!. 2 Kayaks and a canoe were part of the vacation rental. The funniest part was we tied a small rope to one of the kayaks to pull it back if the rider lost control or was scared. Saturday dinner was again amazing with over 5-6 items to choose from!!. I got locked in the bath room for over 30 mins and all my attention seeking efforts went in vain. My friends came after some time and flipped open the lock within a minute. The other spotlight was the horse ride along the 1.5 mile trail along the ocean. It was the first time horse riding experience for all of us and we had good time navigating, controling and talking to the horse!!. The return journey was along the Oregon coast (101N) which presented some breath taking views of the ocean. We took some beautiful pictures and reached Portland in the evening.