I blog at www.mahafreed.com now.

She doesn’t want me to Teach India, here’s why:

Dated 20/7/09

Dear Mahafreed,

If you want to do, what you want to do, then sign this note and remember my warning, because I have experienced teaching at Churchgate railway station and Andheri.

The person in charge was a Christian whose wife and daughter were not involved. He would get college students to work and at “teaching” railway beggars, making films and getting foreign donations for his NGO.

When I had questioned my professor (in teaching school) as to how much money is received from abroad by the “person” they were very rude to me and asked me not to “poke my nose” too much.

Please sign this before you get involved:

1. I, Mahafreed will not expect my mother to get medical treatment if I contract the following diseases:

a. TB (Bleeding from the spit, anus)
b. scabies (100% contagious)
c. ringworm
d. Malaria
e. lice
f. Influenza/Diptharia
g. bed bugs and worms (intestinal)
h. The last disease I am censoring because I was appalled myself to read it in this list.

Sign here

________________

For The Times of India

Bandra, long labelled the Queen of the Suburbs, has lately acquired new tags, thanks to the large number of expats who have made it their home. It’s now also nicknamed Gora Town and the Desi Brooklyn.

The old stomping ground of Mumbai’s expat community was once farther south. But today, Colaba is largely for tourists, and Malabar Hill for vegetarians. Bandra is where the Americans, Brits, French and Germans are headed. To cater to their needs, the bhajiwallas of Pali market stock parsley, arugula and thyme. You see expats waiting for rattling autorickshaws, teaching underprivileged children, learning how to belly dance and tango at Zenzi, and jogging along the curvy promenades at Carter Road and Bandstand.

If Bandra Beautiful has become an attractive expat magnet, it’s for a host of reasons, including good schools and good sushi. For one thing, the consulates are moving. The British deputy high commission has already pitched its tent at the Bandra-Kurla Complex. The Americans, who for years have been making noises about moving there, promise to do so by the summer of 2010.

The consular shifts make eminent sense given that schools and corporates have turned their backs on the pricey real estate of SoBo or South Bombay.

There are many reasons Bandra, the queen of Mumbai’s suburbs, is increasingly the preferred home of expats in the city. The Bandra-Kurla Complex is home to the American School of Bombay and the Dhirubhai Ambani International School. In addition, a number of NGOs like Operation Smile, Kripa, Medecins Sans Frontieres (Doctors Without Borders) and the Kherwadi Social Welfare Association, all of which have a stream of earnest young expat volunteers knocking on their doors, are also based in Bandra. Not only is the suburb ideally located between the Old South and the New North, it’s also less expensive than Breach Candy and offers three luxurious waterfronts as compared to the lone Scandal Point stretch on Bhulabhai Desai Road.

Bandraites, otherwise happy with their exotic new migrants, aren’t too thrilled that expat demand has sent rents soaring higher than Mount Mary’s steeple. Having moved to Mumbai after falling in love online, marketing specialist Jennifer Schoffel thinks Bandra’s strategic placement makes it the most comfortable place in which to live. “It’s almost like a little, independent town in a big city. With its little cafes, bars, restaurants and shopping areas, Bandra offers a very special atmosphere,’’ says the 29-year-old German whose favourite places are restos like Out of the Blue, The Bagel Shop and Zenzi.

Fittingly, the owner of the much-loved Bagel Shop and Zenzi, Matan Schabracq, is himself an expat. A business opportunity brought him from Amsterdam to Bandra five years ago and he fell head over heels in love with the suburb. “Bandra is Mumbai’s New York. It’s full of ambitious young people from other places,’’ says the Almeida Park resident.

Serving expat needs are designer home stores, where American moms shop after dropping their kids off at school, and groceries that stock several varieties of cheese, Thai, Mexican and Chinese sauces, Middle Eastern hummus and crisp lavash bread. At Pali Naka’s Regal Plus store, for example, more than half the customers are foreigners. “We’ve seen a 60% increase in the number of foreign clients who come for imported packaged food,’’ says owner Alkesh Dedhia.

Real estate agent Jogi Singh says Bandra is easily the most popular choice among expats looking to rent. “In the last year, there has been a 30% increase in expats, including students and business heads,’’ he says. He adds that customers prefer to live close to Mount Mary or Pali Hill. Says Ajay Rao, CEO of Writer Relocation, a company that helps people move and set up home in a new city, “About 40% of the members of Writer’s Expat Club live in Bandra.”

Online too, of all the areas in Mumbai, Gora Town is a favoured destination, with Powai a close second. Blogs and travel forums offer free advice to newcomers drifting in from Holland, Israel, Australia, Italy, France, Denmark and Lithuania. Shannon Frandsen, who recently moved to Mumbai from Rotterdam, chose Bandra over Worli and Powai because she felt “it’s a happening place not too far from work or fun’’. This blogger and mom says she’s met expats in Powai who said they’d rather be in Bandra. “I should sell Powai residents a T-shirt that says, ‘I’d rather be in Bandra’,’’ she says jokingly.

Last but not least, Bandra is cool in an important way. “It’s a comfortable place for women,’’ says Daniel Goff, a US resident who lived in Bandra while he was in Mumbai. “They can wear western clothes without getting harassed. And since there are so many of us all around the place, we don’t get constantly stared at.’’

You talk to me with disdain just because of my style.

Death after, the RIPs will scorn the face of your material pursuits.

I’m not self-gloating or looking beyond my reflections, but every human needs respect.

Respect reeks from things trite sometimes. As trite some may think as sun rise.

But to see the beauty in trite and mundane is the beauty of being alive.

It’s all getting to me.

Those overrated restaurants that cater to lazy bodies talking about the next place they should eat at
Those moviehalls that reek of empty popcorn bags thrown by the overdressed bodies
They’re after the mediocre, those bodies without hearts. They’re making me feel sick, the bodies who walk away, the bodies who have no opinions, the bodies who have become part of mechanical routines driven by money and material needs, the bodies who close their eyes and all their senses to keep up with pace.
A pace, that will in turn put to rest their already dead souls.

Where’s the soul?

When was the last time you really felt bad for the lil kid eating a meal from the garbage bin?
When was the last time you felt pain for the lonely stray dog without anyone to love?
When was the last time you admired the way leaves swayed with every passing breeze?

Ah they don’t matter. Entertainment comes to you only when you pay for it. You feel feelings only when you’ve paid to feel them. Sigh.

Its name may make you blush like flame of the forest. But for all its titular randiness, the Bombay Fornicator is favoured not by the young and
the virile but by the elderly who slump into its long embrace looking more for a snore than a whore.

On sale at Mumbai’s most truthfully named market, Chor Bazaar, the Bombay Fornicator-a planter’s chair with extendable arms that swing out and work as footrests-is basking in newfound attention after a prominent featuring in a new novel, Siddharth Dhanvant Shanghvi’s lushly written The Lost Flamingoes of Bombay.

In the book, an impossibly talented photographer is told by an unspeakably gorgeous actress that if he wishes to immortalise Bombay city, he should definitely have the BF starring in a cameo role. Gorgeous doesn’t elaborate or explain, so skewered by curiosity, the lensman stumbles through the antique muddle of Chor Bazaar and braves the smirks of shopkeepers until a beautiful stranger takes pity on him and leads him to the Bombay Fornicator. One suffers his piercing disappointment when he beholds the object of his quest: “what a lot of fuss about a chair”. It is an unkind cut, but the appropriateness of the name soon unfurls.

Called the long lounge chair, the easy chair, aaram khursee, lambey haath or the Tall Dark and Handsome by different users, the low-slung wood-and-rattan Bombay Fornicator is said to have been jointed in India during the British regime and christened by the lounge lizards of the Raj. Today, furniture store Dorabji N Mistry and Sons will build you a customised siesta chair for about Rs 12,000. At Chor Bazaar’s Mutton Street, they are displayed like trophies atop stacks of wooden furniture. Furniture hunters who stop by Saquib Shastiker’s shop often ask him about the grand old chair. Describing it as a “running item”, the 26-year-old businessman says, “I will disclose its price to the customer directly.” A little nudging later he reveals, “The starting price is Rs 10,000 as we re-polish the antique to ensure longevity.”

The BF dozes in the living room of many Goan and Parsi homes and is a staple at the city’s roomy old reading rooms and libraries like the David Sassoon, where members use them to read and siesta. In the polished, old-world interiors of the Ripon Club at Flora Fountain, guests can be seen enjoying a post-lunch nap on the chairs. One of Mumbai’s most respected criminal lawyers, the late P R Vakil, could be found there most afternoons, enjoying a quiet cup of tea. Secretary of the club Rumi Tatary says, “Both men and women enjoy lying on them after eating dhansak or some of the other non-vegetarian Parsi meals we serve.” Zahreer Panthaki, a regular at the club makes it a point to lie on the chair after a hearty meal. “Stretching my legs on this chair makes me feel nostalgic,” says Panthaki, “Many cottages in Udwada too have this antique chair.”

In The Lost Flamingoes of Bombay, the mystery around the Bombay Fornicator is sustained for a while. The lady who pilots the photographer to this unholy grail, asks him to sit in it. Describing the moment, the book reads, `With his crotch aloft, his legs drawn out, Karan felt completely exposed.’ Spreadeagled at a foolish angle in a position all too compromising, the singular beauty of the name strikes him. `He sat up, smiling like a baby who was being tickled on its soles.’

The author recalls how he used to spend days at Chor Bazaar looking for an apt item of furniture for his spartan Juhu studio. “The joy of discovering an old piece is magical, and I often spent time just watching life pass by and hanging out there,” says the 31-year-old Shanghvi. Ask him if he has a Bombay Fornicator at home and he says, “I’m going to get myself one and make sure I put it to good use.”

Wondering whether it was the physical courage or foolhardy nature of news reporters who stood close outside the Taj, during the 26/11 siege, columnist Anil Dharker said the terrorists could have shot news reporters instead of them shooting the terrorists.
At a panel discussion on media’s role during the terror attacks in bookstore Crosswords, Dharker said that no audience would watch a news channel on the basis of it being ethical and less sensational. Questioning the media’s bias towards giving coverage to the Taj and Trident attacks, Chief Editor of Loksatta, Kumar Ketkar asked why old-Parsi building Nariman House was sidelined. The discussion then had the panelists recall times when the media misreported the news.
Trying to get to the truth they said:
1. The girl who claimed Abhishek Bachchan had promised to marry her just before his marriage with Aishwarya was planted by a news channel.
2. Channels broadcasted news about the death of a close friend of Abdul Kalam when he was actually alive.
3. When some reporters don’t know what questions to ask they tell the interviewee, “Why don’t you say what you want to say?”

When Colombian motorcyclist Daniel Velandia set out on a cross-continental tour last year he was told that India was a country where the only rule was that there were no rules. Today, after covering 57,000 km and crossing 23 countries, the 34-year-old test rider has revised his pre-formed opinions of many countries. “India ain’t as bad as I thought it would be, Iran isn’t full of terrorists and people in Sudan are not hostile but very welcoming,” he says. His tour ended in Pune this week.

Calling it a journey of self-discovery and learning, Velandia’s only companions were his camping bag, laptop, camera, GPS, world map and clothes. “It got a little lonely in the beginning but after that I enjoyed being with myself,” says the biker-blogger whose self-charted route started from South America, went on to Africa and the Middle East and ended in India. “My body adjusted well to the changing climate in different countries, except in Turkey where I had to wear four pairs of socks just to make sure my toes didn’t die due to frost bite,” he says.

The best roads, he says, are in South Africa and the worst in Pakistan and Bolivia. The soft-spoken rider claims he never felt threatened during his journey despite being attacked once. “In Ethiopia, a bunch of kids threw stones and sticks at me. I was confused but I was later told that it is a common happening there. The only way to escape is to push the throttle,” he says. A test rider for a Colombian motorcycle magazine, Velandia chose Africa over Europe because “it seemed like a more interesting continent”.

Is he a member of the international long-distance motorcycle endurance riding community, the Iron Butt Association? “No,” he says. “Unlike them, I like stopping, discovering new places, tasting different cuisine and meeting new people.”

The only tedious part about his trip is getting visas. “My Colombian origins were often associated with the drug mafia which is why getting permission became a little difficult.” Ending his journey in Pune, Velandia will take his Bajaj Pulsar 180, which he lovingly refers to as Elvira, back home this week.

Mindless till today, heartless from now

Her face gave away her story, or so they thought

Conspiring with, hiding within

Only loneliness knew she was doomed

Glam doll yesterday, in the bunks tomorrow

Her heart was a coffin of love

She thought it was blooming, as bright as a peach blossom

Half-orphan

-Open to interpretation.

It was the first-ever catwalk for forty-three supercars in the city on a ramp which extended from Kala Ghoda to Prabhadevi and back on Sunday morning. A treat for Mumbaikars who were left wide-eyed asking for more as they lapped-in the svelte bodies of the Lamborghinis, Ferraris, Maseratis, Porsches, Bentleys, Rolls-Royces, BMWs, Audis, the Lotus Elise and the higher-end range of the Mercedes on parade.

Clad in a blue A1 Team India shirt, India’s first Formula 1 driver Narayan Karthikeyan flagged off the inaugural car after which he zipped around the city in a dark grey, British-built, two-seater sports car called the Ariel Atom 3. The Coimbatore-based racer who isn’t used to traffic congestion on big city roads thinks small cars are ideal for Mumbai roads.

Driving close behind Karthikeyan was Jerxis Vandrevala in his shiny, black and customised Rolls-Royce Phantom. Six bodyguards donned in black stood close to the Royce making sure no one touched her. “I usually drive with escort cars to ensure she doesn’t get damaged,” says the Altamount Road resident. Describing the car’s customized interiors, Vandrevala states, “The car’s crest logo has been replaced by my family’s crest which has the Asho Farohar (a Zoroastrian good-luck symbol) and reads, ‘Good thoughts, good deeds and good words.’”

Organiser and chairman Raymond Ltd Gautam Singhania whose brainchild it was is looking forward to annually organize the event and coordinate with Maharashtra Tourism to promote it. Enthused with turn up of people who came to feast their eyes, Autocar India editor Hormazd Sorabjee felt the celebration was only next to an event like the annual marathon. “These cars are an aspiration for all the kids who have come here.”

Equipped with a camera, Kandivali-resident Arpan Divanjee was going click crazy at the temporary enclosure that was built for the cars at Kala Ghoda. “Watching these cars up-close is a different experience because we only read about them in magazines, seen them on TV. Supercars are superstars for automobile buffs like me.” Making sure they have a take-away from the event, some enthusiasts used their cellphones to record the sounds of the V8 and V10 engines zip past. “It gives us an adrenaline rush,” says Divanjee.

Billionaire Pune-resident Yohan Poonawalla who drove down the expressway in his yellow Lamborghini Gallardo on early Sunday morning just to participate in the parade didn’t want to leave the air-conditioned confines of the car because of the soaring temperatures outside.

The city also witnessed the sixth annual vintage car rally which kicked off from Nariman Point. Organiser and chairman of the Western Automobile Association Nitin Dossa said that there were 169 vintage cars and 60 vintage bikes that rallied till Dadar’s Five Gardens and back to Nariman Point.

The confluence of auras in this small sea city makes for wonderful complications.
Days are spent absorbing and soaking.
But you either belong to the stage or the audience.
There’s no satisfaction in doing both.
I know where I belong and I will soon switch places when my time comes

The caged bird flew out one night. He wanted to see the world.
The next day he came back to his cage. Safe and indoors.
The caged bird flew out one night. He wanted to see the world.
The mystery owl saw caged bird fly. He tried to clip his wings.
The mystery owl had a one-track mind; a bad influence on caged bird.

Suicide? She’ll write about it.
Just like she wrote about disease and weakness, heaviness and emptiness.
Her mind is bloated, like a swollen, rotting body.
There’s a party in there. And a funeral too.
Her friends, she wants to invite them all.
The black faced for the party. The beautiful for the funeral.
Her balancing act.

I kept my heart safe in my ribcage,
It couldn’t look around
I kept my heart safe in my ribcage,
It could feel light
I kept my heart safe in my ribcage,
It’s staying there forever

Jailed. Vacuumed.
That’s what I have forced my heart to feel.
That’s what I have been forced to make my heart to feel.

The irony is my name suggests freedom but I have enforced upon myself self-discipline because I belong to a civilised cult.

A cult where love can be taboo if not professed to a kind of person. A cult that believes in forced love.