Mumbai Times

I am back to Mumbai! Well, for my loyal readers, apologies for being away for so long, but moving gave me a convenient excuse to stay away and do fun things like sitting on rollercoasters in Six Flags instead of writing a gooey and grumpy blog on how sad it is moving and what a pain packing is!  Well, I also didn’t want to write a blog on returning back and my first impressions, but well, that’s all I can do today.

First impressions – Well, Kareena is SRKs Chammak Challo and protected by the still dashing Salman as Bodyguard.  Also, Katrina is Imran Khan’ brother’s dulhan and seems to also be dancing in every other trailor.  The number of TV channels has happily gone up and I now am happy to continuously flip through a higher number.  The songs are happily as nonsensical and annoying as ever and we still have the potbellied Sanjay Dutt and other old old actors jumping around with actresses half their age. Oh Boy, we really do need a new crop of actors and actresses.  To think half the people in Mumbai came to be actors!  We still have the same boring people who should start doing papaji and mummyji roles now. Anurag Kashyap still seems to be hell bent on producing apparently esoteric movies (say the reviews) that most people are not supposed to understand as he tries to paint the town yellow. I totally love the ads if they don’t have a Priyanka Chopra in each of them.  From the realllly dumb ads in the US to the zingy ‘Har ek friend jaroori hota hain’ was a nice change.  The khabars are still sansani and Maya is seems to be in her element as she proclaims wikileaks owner as mad and needs to go to the Agra asylum.

I love the rains at Mumbai. I think Americans were rather cute to call similar little puddles that form after a few minutes of a lashing, as flooding!  The traffic outside my house has increased as have the honks. I also woke up suddenly from my cosy afternoon nap (of 4 hours) to rush out because of an earthquake that turned out to be beats from some loudspeaker from a nearby Ganesh Pandal.  After exulting about getting a cook and getting meals which I DID NOT HAVE TO COOK, I ended up doing all the dishes from the last two days since the maid who did the washing did not turn up. 

I still need to venture out and then come back and bitch here more about the traffic and pollution and honking and public spitting all the time and the filth and poverty etc and annoy all my Indian friends.  Forgive me, but I am really trying hard to play the role of that foren returned NRI here although my past 48 hours of mostly lolling on the sofa and only watching tv while being served chai and lunch by my wonderful cook J makes me forget I ever did all those chores in US!  (Okay, this second part is to make all my foren friends who are still slogging away with cooking and cleaning envious!). It is little wonder that I came back! All in all, I am loving it as of now and looking forward to eating Damodar ke mashoor samose, jalebis, Sardar’s buttery pav bhaji and  paneer tikka masala that leaves orange color on my hands. More on Mumbai hereforth!