Red Pen Season is over, July is nearly at an end and an empty suitcase appears to have materialised in my study. It must be time for me and the Divine L to embark on another summer adventure. The cross-Channel ferry beckons… Needless to say, there won’t be many posts for the next few weeks, but then there haven’t been many for several months, … Continue reading An Empty Suitcase
Here’s another Indian video for you. This one was taken at a relatively quiet crossroads in Pune where I was struck by the magic of the traffic. Watch the clip to see what I mean. Continue reading Crossroads In Pune
If any of you have ever smoked a beedi, you may enjoy this video of a man in Pune wrapping them up at astonishing speed. Continue reading Man In Pune
For a place where several hundred severely disabled men, women and children are looked after, the atmosphere in Mumbai’s Asha Daan is surprisingly quiet and relaxed. The nine nuns who run the place clearly wish to avoid ostentation, although they’re effusive when it comes to greetings. “Look around,” they say. “Talk to the people. Ask them how they are.” The Divine L and I have … Continue reading Busy For Hours
It really is impossible to over-emphasise the prominence and importance of smells in Mumbai. My last post was just a brief, tip-of-the-iceberg sample of the stream of chemicals that constantly enters one’s nose in this genuinely sensuous city. I could’ve mentioned the aroma of jasmine and tuberose coming from the garlands hanging by the florists’ stalls, or the salty freshness blowing into Chowpatty Beach, or … Continue reading Very Rarely Confronted
Two minutes in Mumbai: You walk past a sugar-cane juice seller and catch a whiff of an incense cone: rich and smoky, a Catholic scent that feels out of place amidst the noise of the streets. You look to your right as you pass a side street and you almost gag as the stench of rotting fruit and stagnant water rises from the collection of … Continue reading Into Your Face
Just across the Mula river from Pune’s Koregaon Park is a large gym on the first floor of a modern building. Lining the floor-to-ceiling windows is the familiar sight of sweating bodies – with obligatory towel around neck – doing battle with treadmills, cross-trainers, stationary bikes and rowing machines. As they sip energy drinks from their plastic Nike bottles, they look out at the city … Continue reading Plastic Nike Bottles
The first thing I notice in Powai is that the skyscrapers are bleeding. From their thirty-storey summits, an unsightly mix of mould and mildew is slowly working its way to the ground, threatening to cover the buff-coloured exteriors in the same blackness that shrouds so many of Mumbai’s buildings. You can cut into the green hills to make room for apartment blocks, but I guess … Continue reading The Right Direction
Whenever I go on holiday, I decide that I really ought to know more about politics, architecture and economics. Visiting a foreign country must be such a rich experience if you can look at the buildings with an expert eye and come to intelligent conclusions about how they reflect the society that built them, or if you can read the business sections of the local … Continue reading Make Sound Judgements
Here’s something I’ll bet you didn’t know: this blog is exactly five years old today. Quite a few things have happened since July 05. For a start, I wasn’t married. I hadn’t completed my novel. And I was allergic to any product bearing the Apple logo. I never manage to post as many entries here as I’d like to, but I know my slackness hasn’t … Continue reading My Loyal Readers
DARIUSH ALAVI 