nightlifemumbai

If you visit a flower market in Mumbai, you will usually not see the coral jasmine. It flowers at night, and when day breaks, all the flowers fall, leaving a beautiful carpet of flowers on the ground. It is a fragile flower, that fades quickly, and doesn't do well when transported to markets. In my mother's apartment there is a coral jasmine plant; and every morning, the night watchman gathers up the flowers and gives them to my mother. Some of them go into the kitchen temple, but the others are used like this, as a beautiful carpet for her plants. Coral jasmine, offered to the Tulsi, and to other plants  This jasmine is offered to gods, even after it has fallen to the ground. In Tamil, it is called kanaka malli , where kanaka means coral, and malli is jasmine. In Hindi, the coral jasmine is called harsingar , or the adornment of God. It is the state flower of West Bengal. In Bengali it is called sheuli . This flower is also identified as  parijat , a legendary flo...

- by Deepa Krishnan A few days ago, I had lunch in a small village home in the Palghar district of Maharashtra. The people who live in this village are tribal agriculturalists, practising subsistence farming. One of the families cooked lunch for us. We ate sitting on mats on the floor. I was super-hungry and wolfed down my meal in minutes. Our hostess brought endless servings of everything, until I was fit to burst. Here's a photo of what I ate: Everything on my plate was grown locally. There was rice, which is grown during the monsoon season on the nearby hill slopes in small terraces. There was bhendi (okra / ladies finger), chowli (black-eyed beans), tuar (pigeon-pea) dal, two types of home-made papad and a home-made mango pickle. All of it came from nearby farms and fields.  But the thing that delighted me most was the dark brown roti, called nachni bhakri.   Nachni (finger millet) is one of the healthiest things you can eat. Loads of calcium and iron. Lots of fibre. Slow ...

- By Deepa Krishnan Ever since the monsoon season started, I have been wanting to see the Western Ghats in all their green glory. Finally we found the time, a perfect day, half sunny, half cloudy, and we set out for the Buddhist Caves at Bedse.  The mountains ahead of us Most people living in Bombay don't know that the spread of Buddhism on the West Coast of India began in the Mumbai Metropolitan Region; in what we today call Nallasopara (the next train station on the Western line immediately after Vasai). The Mauryan Emperor Ashoka (273 to 276 BC) sent an emissary called Dharmarakshita to Sopara (it was at that time major trading port). Ashoka's Edict at Sopara is now in the Prince of Wales Museum, but you can see a photo and translation of the edict here.  The Buddhist monks found the perpendicular cliffs of the Sahyadris eminently suitable for their monsoon prayer retreats. What may have started as a small rock-excavation experiment of the monks turned into a very majo...

- By Deepa Krishnan A couple of weeks ago, I went with my sister Roopa to the inauguration of her friend's furniture showroom in Belapur. After many years doing large corporate contracts and custom work, Roopa's friend Subhangi had finally set up a retail store in CBD Belapur. Roopa (left) with Subhangi (in saree)  A retail store - especially with a branded line of home furniture - was a dream come true for Subhangi, and we wanted to congratulate her. In our little Brahmin community, very few people turn entrepreneurs. And as for women entrepreneurs, honestly, I can't even count a handful. I was pretty pleased to see what a good job Subhangi had done, and how nice the shop looked. Subhangi calls her product line Furnicheer. My sis and I agreed that it was indeed very cheerful, just the sort of thing you need to brighten up a rainy day. Traditional Indian fabrics, silk and zari, used to add drama to the home I had not been to Belapur for over 10 years. So it was a complete s...

- By Deepa Krishnan I was in the Marathwada region a couple of weeks ago, on a trip to the Ajanta Caves. As you probably know, this area of Maharashtra has been suffering from drought for the last 2 years. So I was really delighted to see that it had been raining! Everywhere we could see farmers ploughing the moist soil with bullocks.  Beautiful pair of oxen, rich moist soil The soil was a kind of clayey black (although it looks brownish when freshly tilled). It is very fertile black soil, said to be perfect for cotton. Most of the farms we saw were small and seemed to be self-cultivated. I was curious about it, so I looked up the Aurangabad Gazette, and found that more than 75% of the farmers cultivate their own land, with the help of family, or by hiring someone to work alongside them. The farmer we saw was working with one helper. Sowing seeds. When I asked what they were sowing, I found that it was maize. The farmer's little daughter was playing in the field, running around, an...