Sunday, September 28, 2008

GreatINDIANmiddle class

Goes on holiday to a lovely place like Coorg, and goes to visit monasteries with a packed cardboard box of apples, chips and sandwiches

And stays in a resort that offers home style s/n Indian food
I never get why you'd want to go somewhere and not get your hands dirtied by the place
eat the local food, stay in nice lovely locally place etc


Anyway no cribbing.
I did travel show and stayed in one of these resorts hence observation

Sion

My neighbourgood in Sion in bombay reminds me of the India that i grew out of. Barring the stray
dominoes pizza, the coke ads and the vodafone ads that are like bombays skin now anyway, it has little evidence of the India i grew into.It has old Kirana shops, aunties in saris who think the only 24/7 job ust be for a brothel, melody toffees, old tailor shops, general stores whatnot




I cover retail for some business stories I do
Now , it some times makes me sad that even fab India has fallen into the 'retail trap'and has started looking more and more like west side type places with instore advertising.

Retail when I was young was a Tripti oil store in Bangalore where my mother had a montly account and I went there occassionally , five year old, alone only because it was so close to my house
it required no crossing.

And bought maggi pockets.
Once I crossed the road oppossite and a scooter hit me.
I had an Accident. There are two types of accidents
One:When some thing hits u
Two: When something runs over u

I am sure I have a memory of a scooter running over me but my mother shut me up and said i wouldn't even have been alive had a scooter run over me.



Anyway Part two of the India I was growing into was the Trinethra supermarket in Hyderabad. I then thought I could indulge in things aa long as they were below 20 Rupees. bags, chocolates whatever



And then my dad got a fancy job, we moved cities and gorged on foregn products in super markets, I'd pick up whatever i fancied and put it in the trolley,we'd travel abroad,



And then I kept moving for studies , to work

But then it's amazing because I finally moved back to bangalore after 12 years and NOTHING in the city reminded me of what it used to be.It was almost like a new ccity except Cubbon park and lal bagh.

And for someone who generally has a good memory its'sad, this change

Wednesday, September 03, 2008

Bombay

In the clinical confines of a news room being told that

if the blasts were in a slum area and only 3 people died ...why cover it?

And

One farmer committed suicide feeling sad for Ratan.He after all took his land and paid him back for it.

One out of ----

Reporting is fun sometimes

Marine drive is nice and my little cozy apartment crammed with 5 girls who can't afford bombay's crazy rents

Zenzi/ big town/things open late/everything so far

grown up and working