The only thing about showing outdoor Mumbai fun to kids in August is you never know when it will rain. When it rains it almost always pours!

Here is a sample of the monsoon. We did not have any umbrellas on day 1 because we were still getting used to the concept. This video was taken outside Basu tailor.

Just as we were about to get our hands on this “butta” it started drizzling. We made a mad dash to our parked car and by the time we got to our car, everyone was thoroughly drenched!

A couple of shots taken from the moving horse cart..

We also did the usual trips to Mahalakshmi temple (and ate those delicious pakoras after visiting the temple) and Siddhi Vinayak and drove through the Marine drive area a few times.

Mumbai has an ever changing skyline, a constant reduction in available open spaces, and screams “development” from every street corner.

The Taj hotel was ready to be reopened and that was heart warming..

At the end of the trip I told FIL that either Mumbai is going to be a shining example to the world or go into military rule pretty soon! Had good reasons to make that statement because there are big big holes in law enforcement and the society is truly pocketed and segregated.

It is true that when you go to SFO you see Chinatown, Little Japan, Little Saigon etc. etc. and there is a desi pocket. But there are no issues between these pockets or within the pockets (or they do not come out in the news!). Mumbai is different. It is like a reaction waiting to happen. You sense it in the air.. from small things like the Butta vendor requesting we delete his photograph because “things are very difficult for them in the Gateway area” where “them” implied “muslims” to the auto rickshaw drivers choosing select routes to be on the safe side.

This is tricky business for a city that is “going viral” like a hit youtube video!

Now we get to look forward to our next India trip….

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Behind every successful camera, there is a photographer.

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maybe it should read

“My name is Bombay Paati(grandma) and I am probably on the errorlist!”

The MIL landed here yesterday. Her flight landed at 11:30. As usual went to the airport at 11:30 and by the time I walked to the arrivals area it was 11:45. Usually MIL is the first one to come out because she gets wheelchair assistance. Long flights make her feet swell and an accident has left her ankle buckled.

This time I waited till 12, then 12:30, then 1 then 1:30 and finally started worrying.

What can one do when someone doesn’t come out two hours after the flight lands and everyone else seems to have come out?

Who do you call?

Then finally she comes out in a wheel chair at 2:00!

Apparently she was randomly selected for a Department of Homeland Security screening.

The line for people who went for this screening was 1 hour!

Then the guys asked her some routine questions, thoroughly checked her suitcases and said “fine, go.”

Some dudes got paid good money for doing this and the tax we pay went towards that good money.

Meanwhile my feet started hurting after standing for 2 1/2 hours in the arrivals area. There are only a handful of seats and they were all taken by elderly people waiting for their loved ones.

Was so glad to be home a good 4 1/2 hours after leaving for the pickup!

Dear DHS agents,

Sari wearing grandmas who cannot walk fast enough do not pose a threat to national security.

Surely, you must have some stats on the number of south Indian grandmas who have successfully done any damage. What does that data tell you? Or does it not matter.

In the meantime someone who really poses a threat would be getting away for lack of scrutiny, because you are too busy questioning grandma, no?

On a side note, I was asked to finish drinking all my water and all my coke at Hong Kong or toss it before getting on a plane. this in spite of my drinking samples of both and showing the search dudes! Granted it was purchased on the coupons Cathay Pacific gave us because of the flight delay, but still a waste of good money, no?

Apparently this is only for US bound flights. All other outgoing flights do not have to go through this.

You surely make us feel very special!

Luckily for us, grandma has been here long enough to not hold this against the US of A. She knows that this is standard operating procedure here, however stupid it might be. In her words, this is nothing compared to how you asked my MIL’s MIL (our kids eighty year old great grandma) to take off her Mangalsutra and when she gave you a WTF stare, you insisted on frisking her in a booth!

Oh well, time and a continuous education process for the ways of other cultures will heal all this. They say the world is shrinking. We sincerely hope the USA becomes a nice part of this shrinking world.

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Moving through Delhi-6 in pouring rain,

Thought the whole Kavadi thing was a south Indian Murugan temple concept. Did not know that it was prevalent in the north w.r.t. Haridhwar temple. There were guys walking all around Delhi with orange underwear carrying decorated Kavadis. We also saw people blaring religious songs in big trucks with a bunk bed on top of each truck, a motorcycle in each truck and 7-8 guys. The truck also looked like kitchen/living quarters for the 7-8 dudes. One guy runs 2 kilometers with the Kavadi, then he gets on the truck and another guy takes his place.

Apparently it is a Kavadi relay where they keep it going without the thing ever touching the ground all the way from Delhi to Haridhwar. . . It was interesting to watch to say the least.

We picked “the worlds slowest and most careful driver”. He had no sense of urgency whatsoever. He stopped for every other car to cross us, slowed down at every yellow light and kept telling us the same diaglogue:

“sir, laal baththi ho gaya naa Sir. Ise liye traffic bad gaya!”.. Many a time I was just tempted to clobber him over the head and take over the steering wheel. Still we made it to the Taj Mahal and back in one day.

We were told it is a 5 hour journey from Delhi and it took him a good 8 hours to go and a nice 7 hours to come back.

Spending 15 hours between 6AM and 11PM in a van with two little kids is an experience in itself. With the itch to clobber Mr. Laal Baththi every 30 minutes, it was definitely an interesting experience!

He was a nice guy and a family man.. so he kept giving me a lecture on safe driving. My point was “the risk between going 15 mph to 25 mph is not different”

Next time we will need to have the driver do a little 8 outside the hotel lobby before we get inside the vehicle.

Until then…

ps. on a funny note..

We went to Raj Ghat and Jr.’s sandals (Chappals) tore. So she had to stay put in the parking lot with grandma. Told her we were going to see the place where Gandhi’s ashes were stored.

Jr. asked me “Ghandhi is like Martin Luther King for India right? He also had a dream?”

Me : Martin Luther King is like Gandhi for the USA. He had the dream first.. MLK was inspired by Gandhi. Did you know that?

Jr.: ?! (finally Jr. realized what she had learnt in her history class).

Saw this inscription on the way ..

Did not have the mind to post the picture I took of the paan that was spit on the side of this inscription just as you enter the grounds of Gandhiji’s resting place.

My heart could not bear it. Who spits paan at Mahatmaji’s memorial?

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you will have a million desi folks buying this gizmo..

So what if the Fox’es and NBC’s do not want to go into negotiations with you for rights to play their serials episodes at 99 cents a pop?

When we asked an older relative how much TV serials they watched (on our recent India trip) the answer was..

“not much. Just 4 hours in the afternoon and 6 hours in the evening” and it was a straight faced answer.

That means, there are folks who watch a lot more desi serials.

Please go talk to Ekta Kapoor or Radhika Sarathkumar..

I see a bright future for Apple TV if you pick up that iPhone and make that call..

yours truly,

iPhone lover.

ps. I have only seen this Apple TV at a friends house. They told me that Tamizh serials are not on the list. So please forgive me if you are already ahead of the game.

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Left Manali at 6AM and drove in rain through mountain sides where there were many rocks that had fallen on the roads (we did not read the news.. and had no idea that the entire area was taking heavy rains. Leh which was 100 or kilometers away had a cloudburst and many people died that week) and finally reached Manikaran at 8 AM.

Our expert driver told us “if you want to see Chandigarh airport by 6:30 this evening in this weather, you have to be back here by 9:15. That is assuming you get 30 minutes for one break!”

We took him very seriously and went past the bridge, the Gurudwara, the cave, the shiva temple, the durga temple, the ram temple including me taking a dip in the hot springs at the Ram temple!

What an entrance to a temple!

Here is a video where the little one is bugging me about a dog. She has a biscuit in her hand and it is eye level with the dog! Of course she couldn’t shake him off!

We made it just 45 minutes before our flight, but it was enough for us to get into the plane and be on our way to Mumbai.

One amazing thing at Manikaran is that both the Gurudwara and the Temple have a Langar where they provide free food for anyone who walks in. They do this by throwing in sacks of rice and lentils and potatoes into the hot spring (which is pretty much boiling over) and out comes cooked rice, dal and aalo! Mother nature’s kitchen. Should ask the food network to cover this. Truly amazing.

They also take some water and put a tea bag in it and drink instant Chai! Apparently there is a place which is a 2 day hike from Manikaran called Kheer Ganga where the water is hot and foamy that it looks like Milk. There you make Chai Latte!

Our driver told me, “only way is to hike, but the place is beautiful. You should take more time and go with a trained guide. The two day hike is worth it” and I was thinking “let me see. cannot get that kind of time off now with the little kids. by the time they are old enough to join me on a hike like that, I will be too old to hike!”

In any case, if there is a next time, we will try to see KheerGanga.

Happy enough that we got to see Manikaran. It is truly heaven on earth and the ride along the river is truly worth it, rain or rocks!

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Instead we decided to go the valley and have some fun.

A small yellow canopy with an electric Oven and a Nescafe machine powered by a pulled down connection from the ski lift. The menu was all Italian and the guy did make a decent pizza based on feedback we could hear.

It was Hut Pizza!

So at the end of the day, we missed out on going to Rohtang but had a ton of fun in the valley!

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The little one is almost there. Another few millimeters and we will somehow find a way to pin a flower on it…

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One has to wait for 5 minutes so the previous lessons folks pull out and we can park. Knowing all this we usually go 5-10 minutes before lesson starts to find parking.

The kids run out of the pool and into the car or van so they can shower at home.

Last week we came out with the kids. We were 10 feet away from the van when we saw this desi dude park his car and walk away with his kid. He pretty much made sure that 3 cars could not get out! All three cars had wet or semi dry kids waiting to get home.

In spite of our calling our to dude he kept clicking his car keys and walked on with his daughter.

So I tried to pull out, no luck. Then tried to guide another parent out of her spot hoping she would clear the blocking car and in the process give me room to get out. That did not work either. Just then the dude walks back and sees us try to get by.

I told him “aree yaar. why do you do this? we have kids waiting to get home” (he was desi for sure, but did not know what language he spoke.. so the aree yaar was my attempt at being polite)

His response “do you want to stay here longer?”

Me : I don’t get it. You parked illegally along the red line. We have been trying to get our cars out and were thinking of calling a towing company. The only correct thing for you to say here is “sorry”.. instead you ask me “do you want to stay here longer?”

Dude : I would have said sorry, but the expression on your face made me angry.

Again, no sorry. Apparently my facial expression at being frustrated is more offensive than what he did.

We finally got out of that parking lot a good 15 minutes later.

This whole being wrong and showing attitude thing by some desi dude in the US is new to me. Have seen this in Chennai/ Mumbai , even on my recent trip. Never seen it here. Usually Desi’s behave responsibly at least in the areas we have lived in.

This was a new thing for us to experience this.

Hope this doesn’t start a trend!That would pretty much even out the difference between living in India and living here.

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We were in Hyderabad for a little under 48 hours. In that time we managed to spend one whole afternoon at Ramoji Film City, which according to the Guinness book of World records is the largest film city in the world. It was a very good shooting location. It was also obvious that Ramoji had visited Universal Studios and Disney in LA and pretty much lifted sections 1:1 from things like the bus tour, the sign boards, the restaurant areas or the shows.

At some places it felt like we were in Universal and it is really a place to see. The only thing different between Universal and Ramoji is the crowd. Not the numbers, but the behavior of the folks in the crowd.

It clearly says “Wait from this point is 15 minutes” in most of the lines for various shows. Once you are in the line, you cannot get out. That said, pushing the guy in front of you is not going to get you in any faster! They send 80-100 folks inside at any one time. Unfortunately the majority of the folks in that crowd were not grasping that concept. They did not even have any sympathy for the kids in the line. It was one mad dash to compact everyone in the line. Finally figured out why the phase “patti kaatan in mittai kadai” existed. Except for the unruly crowd, the rest of the experience was nice.

However, Jr. and the little one now have a phobia for Desi theme parks. They are really scared of standing in lines where we cannot get out. Time will fix that. That need we checked out Bikanervala restaurant. Have never tasted a butter naan that good in a long long time. Simply melted in my mouth. Divine food! We need a branch in the bay area. Hopefully they will hear this plea! They have one in New Zealand for crying out loud.

The next evening we went to Charminar area to shop for Bangles, Mehendi etc. That was followed by a late evening adventure at Hussain Sagar lake including a boat ride to see the Buddha statue, a car ride for the kids and a few security friskings in all these places.

The hour we spent in Charminar was very interesting. Have been the only non white guy in a see of white faces, have been the only brown dude in a group of black folks, have been the only south Indian with a bunch of desis from the north and west, but being the only “mottai” with a couple of women in brightly coloured Chudidhars among a sea of women in veils and guys in tight jeans with skull caps made me feel like a stranger in a strange land.

There was a reason for not feeling odd but odd and scared. There are a couple of rowdy elements in plain sight in this area. One dude came and hit the bangle seller who was trying to bargain with us. Did not understand what he said but it was pretty clear that the seller was being discouraged from dealing with us.

It was me, San, SIL and three little kids. Me watching the curious kids and fending off as much as 5 to 6 dudes per minute trying to sell me the same pair of Rayban sunglasses while San and SIL checked out bangles. After that guy’s hitting the bangle seller, just wanted to leave that area and get out in one piece. The kids were asking me why everyone was dressed differently in this area and why we could not see any of the girls faces. We had good explanations for them at the lake.

By the time we were at the airport trying to head to Delhi the little one asked “We are in Hong Kong already?”. The Hyderabad airport is truly amazing. Excellent ambiance, customer service at the airline counter, stores, etc. Way better then any Indian airport we have visited.

Hyderabad is a fun city. We were not well oriented for it and by the time we got to know the city a little better, had to leave. . .

Next time, we will be ready for a better experience.

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