last weekend...

in my mumbai...

will be gone to pune..only 150 kms away...but somehow for me it always seems like an eternity away from mumbai...

of this vacation in mumbai i will remember...
endless weeks and weekends spent working on a comp all day...with no one but data for company
waiting at Khar station for joyie and then sitting there on the platform with her watching people go by...
evenings by the sea spent with joyie...and alone.
sleeping off in movie halls watching johnny depp (how will i ever forgive myself for this..hehe)
staying up with somu beyond my 11 pm deadline and making her laugh with GRE wordlist enriched sentences...
seeing suhas off at the airport...bombs and all...
trying real hard and succeeding at not chopping off my hair...
only memories of 26th and 27th of July 2005...


...and of course...things i will never blog about.

the heights of irony...

coz' we will now take the Pakistanis' help to resist authority...

this time it's a reminder of the Emergency to all of us who weren't born around that time...

one of the reactions of the govt. to the bomb blasts has been a clampdown on blogs..

i found a way around...here it is...

please visit www.pkblogs.com

or simply type http://www.pkblogs.com/vibster (an example) in the address bar to access ay blog

to put it even more simply..put your blogname or anyother blog name in place of vibster in the above mentioned example..

this is an effort by the pakistani bloggers to help access blogs in pakistan when the government there blocked them...

more later..too much work.

can't make sense of this madness...

each day as i talk to people as young (or old) as me or younger or older than me...

the country they hail is israel "we really need to go the israel way..no one cares for their citizens the way they do..you bomb one school of theirs...they will bomb ten schools of yours"
the leader they seek is a dictator.even a fascist. "we don't like modi..but we think we need someone like him right now"
the government they seek is one that will equal in terror. "We are too soft"
all this even as the media dedicates paeans to the mumbai spirit..well.. there is this other side too...

missed this one too...

by about five minutes and fortunately was in the opposite direction...travelling in a train on the same line.

the streets are pretty empty today...so are the trains.

a lot of things have changed...was at the airport yesterday just after the blasts...and there was absolutely no panic. everyone calmly making their respective strategies to get back home.

on our way to the international airport (was going to see suhas off) the police stopped us, checked our baggage...asked the cabbie to show his license and other papers...and when he had none...the matter was settled for Rs. 50.

some things never change.

Immortalised...

forever...as a journo of a tabloid...:)

it's been about two years since i gave up reporting...in pursuit of perspective. i thought that would have been the day when i bid goodbye to calls from harried residents about overflowing drains..flooded compounds...monsoon wrecked roads, illegal encroachments, thefts, murders, etc, etc.

but i realised that the patrons of the tabloid i used to work for continue to make me hold the post of a reporter and very expectantly call me up even now to report on the same issues or sometimes just to say hello...trust me i still get invited to "chai" even when i am in pune by this old couple in Versova whom i had once contacted for a story. and then there is this old Commie journo who still calls up to find if i am doing ok in gokhale...

just today, as i was struggling to make my way through the crowd in the train to get to work...i get a call from a Mrs. Dias. she asked for me and was relieved to know that i remembered her. her problem two years since i quit remains the same. her building compound and the road outside gets flooded almost to waist level thanks to some illegal dumping and encroachment by a local MLA. children can't get to school, people can't go to work, and they all live in the perpetual fear of a short circuit.

her husband used to call me up earlier.."he passed away 8 months back...of foodpoisoning"" she told me. i spoke to her ...often searching for words in the precise two minute conversation. and then gave her joyie's number and hung up.

i don't know what to make of it...although i felt a little happy that people still remembered me even if it was at the time of distress i sort of felt a little like a loser coz' despite reporting several times on the problem..nothing ever got done. monsoon after monsoon...the problems remain the same. and people continue to have faith in a tabloid that reports on local issues. but nothing really changes. and we continue to wait for once in 5 years to take our revenge at the time of an election. but that's about it. am a little repulsed by the dormancy that sets in democracy.

p.s. well..so much for being accused of writing journalistic trash and so much for wanting to change the world.
:)