Goa to Bombay (1)

My first trip this summer. And it was to Goa, from where we had to get to Mumbai. With pit stops of course!

The bougainvillea

We reached Margaon, Goa at 10 in the morning. Getting into a taxi, the feel of a small lazy town soon drifted to us. Our hotel ‘La Flor’ was a small place, in a rundown area with a railway track opposite the hotel. Imagine waking up at midnight because of a train horn!
Of course the first task was to find a good place for lunch. Asking a taxi driver where we would find local food, we set off asking locals for the directions. At Khamat we had a delightful ‘thali’.

A truck on a train!

The hotel was lovely. Small but you could sit out front under a mango tree. The fusion of bougainvillea, mangoes, cats, trains and shouts of children enjoying the summer accompanied by a gentle breeze was enthralling.

In the evening, impatient to shoot a sunset at a beach, I dragged my parents out asking an auto to take us to the closest beach.
We soon reached Colva, which was your typical tourist beach. Cafes, roadside shops selling beach dresses and water sports. A lot of people were parachute sailing, others using jet skis. Frolicking in the surf was fun. After which I settled onto the sand getting some spectacular snaps of the sunset.

Dinner was cold pizza, and cola at a small café by the sea.

Passport to Sam's heart

The channel, Travel and Living (now, TLC.) used to be one of my favorites. Samantha Brown, peppy, funny and full of life, took me almost all over the world. This poem, written when I was 10, is dedicated to her.

Oh Samantha, you stole our hearts

With passports to different places

You travelled to China, Latin America

And travelled straight into our  hearts

You hosted great hotels,

Went on a cruise

Had fun in Disney Land,didn’t you?

Oh Samantha you made us laugh

With all your funny comments

Oh Samantha, we wish we could

Find a passport to your heart

Oh wouldn’t it be great,

If we could say

We have the passport to Samantha’s heart!

The City With The Pulse- Mumbai

This is what I’m missing I thought. It was eight thirty in the evening and I was sitting on the parapet at Marine Drive. The Queen’s Necklace as vibrant and colorful as ever. I watched a boy, probably sixteen or seventeen years of age taking a dog and a pup for a walk. People jogged by listening to music.

Not only did I not have a place like this to walk around in my town, there was no way I could do it alone, especially at night. During different situations friends and I had been forced to use autos instead of walking, thanks to hooligans on the street. Here, you scream, people beat up the guy near you and then ask what is wrong.

True, Mumbai’s a big city, too big for me, a small town girl at heart. But then you have these wonderful opportunities!
 You have restaurants by the sea where you have a karaoke night with DJs. Bookstores with wonderful collections and cozy armchairs tucked away in corners to escape reality, and cafés with scrumptious food. Believe me serious reading makes one hungry.
 

The true essence of Mumbai is, I guess, the way all opposites seem to live together happily. You have your Bollywood superstars, and you have the biggest slum in all of Asia, Dharavi in the same city. You have people selling toys and porno movies on the same street. Buildings that look Tudor and Victorian house banks like HSBC and BSNL.

Mumbai cannot be described in one article. In the coming days there’ll be more I assure you. So keep an eye on this page.

The Crazy Class Trip (3)

Warning: 24 hours on a mini bus strictly not recommended, especially for people with sensitive backsides.

Imagine this. 24 people, sitting close to midnight on a nearly deserted station. Oh yes, and to top it all one of our classmates wanted to have a dance off with a drunk Michael Jackson wannabe.

The teachers were calling up senior teachers, trying to figure out what to do. One thing was clear. We were not supposed to spend the night in Bangalore. We did try telling the teachers that we could take a Volvo and then later pay. But no. They wanted to do it their way.

We got into our tour bus and started off for some place. I don’t really know the name. The girls and boys were separated and put in two mini buses. Oh did I mention one of the guys had chicken pox?
 

So at 1.04 am, I was sitting on a mini bus, trying to sleep, which was a bit difficult due to three reasons. Firstly I’m a long legged person, and there was no leg space at all. Second, the window on the other side was completely open, and it was freezing cold. Third and most annoyingly, the driver was playing Himesh Reshamia songs and refused to play any others. (For those of you who don’t know, Mr. Reshamia sings through his nose, and it can be quite irritating.) Two guys were on our bus, and one refused to sleep saying that most accidents in the state of Karnataka occurred because the driver fell asleep.

In the morning, my phone was the only one with charge so it was used to call up the parents. We finally stopped at a petrol pump to freshen up. My friend and I made a beeline for a shop asking for a plug point to charge our phones. I must say I fell in love with my phone all over again because in fifteen minutes it had four bars. We stopped to breakfast at a small roadside joint. Lunch was at four in the afternoon. And I finally made it back home by around 1.30 am.

Here’s the best bit. A week later I got chicken pox, and so did all others in the class who hadn’t gotten it before! Moral of the story? Never ever let your teachers plan your class trips!!

A tryst with Sharman Joshi

A few weeks ago, while taking a walk around Fort area, Mumbai, I noticed a crowd gathered next to Jahangir Art Gallery. Curious, I went and became a part of it. There were whispered conversations from which one could decipher that it was a film shooting, and the star was Sharman Joshi. He came out of his van, and was having a chat with a man before they started shooting. I, being the quintessential shutter-bug immediately took a snap. Unfortunately it came out blurred so I deleted it. A man saw this and came and requested quite politely that I delete the snap saying it’s not allowed.

Telling him that I had already deleted it wasn’t enough. He wanted to see for himself. I really wanted to ask him if he’d like to go through all the 144 snaps I’d taken of Mumbai, that very day.

Ok so maybe snaps like these are taken and released when they aren’t supposed to. But do you think that it’s fair to do so when it’s a public place? For all he knew I could have been taking a picture of the cobbled street, or of the lights.

The streets belong to everyone. Or so they say.

 Apparently they don’t.

If you have a different point of view which you wish to express, please post a comment or write to me at ritealot@gmail.com. You never know, you could be the inspiration for my next article. :)

The Crazy Class Trip (2)

After spending two days and a night in Mysore, we headed back to Bangalore to shop some more.  Stopping at a stadium opposite the entrance to Commercial Street, we were told to get back by 7 pm. That gave us around 3 hours to shop. We spilt up into many groups and went different ways. We all got back to the bus on time and started off for Pizza Hut, to take pizzas so we could eat on the train. After getting the pizza, we started off for the station.

One of the teachers just happened to take a look at the ticket. It was 8.50 pm…and our train was leaving at 9 pm!!! Apparently out guide had though 21.00  meant 11 o’clock. A mad rush for the station took place. Many of us, seasoned travellers tried calling the station. And then we suggested instead of Yeshvantpur, why not go to Bangalore Junction, where the train’ll wait for more time. But no, the teachers were stubborn, and by the time we reached the platform, our train was gone.

Now what would happen normally in a situation like this? Teachers would take charge and calm parents, guardians and students down right? But then my school is not normal. They started weeping!! And our sir disappeared somewhere! I must say that is one time my class was at it’s best. Dividing wordlessly into groups, some started calming the teachers down, two of us contacted friends in Bangalore to ask for tickets, and while I did that I also had the honour of calming down a classmate and calling up his grandfather.

We sat at the station till 11 ‘o’clock, waiting for the teachers to come to a decision. It was 15 degrees C. Two girls didn’t have jackets, and the extra cardigans were greatly appreciated. Phones were switched off to conserve the battery.

My Date with Mr.Potter

At 4.30 in the morning, the air was cool, and I was glad I had a light jacket with me. I stood with my Mom, and my friend outside Modern Book Depo. I had been asked a few days ago to read out a few lines from ‘Harry Potter and The Deathly Hallows’ for the release in my city. A huge honor, but also quite nerve-wrecking as at least three major Malayalam news channels were covering the event.

My emotions were too difficult to separate. Nervousness, for I am a very camera shy person, happiness that I was getting such a great opportunity, and fear. Not for myself, but for the characters of ‘Harry Potter’ as they were going to face their greatest battle yet.

It was time. I did not bother brushing my hair, or adjusting my shirt to hide fat. Instead I took a few deep calming breaths as my Mom and friend wished me good luck. As I stepped out of the store room and into the area of the shop, there was a smattering of applause. Quite stunned, I took my seat. Even as I sat, a strange realization came over me. This moment was never going to come again…I had to, had to make it memorable! I smiled a real smile and looked at everyone bravely before reading out the introduction. As I started reading the first few lines, I could hardly hear the cameras clicking and the whir of a video recorder. Instead I was lost in Rowling’s words.

There was an audible sigh of relief as the crowd heard that their beloved Harry does not die, and an inaudible one as I finally finished. I got up and got myself a glass of water, all the time admiring myself for overcoming one of my worst fears- the one of facing too many people.