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 Yesterday at The Magic Room, I attended a marvellous session organized by Expansions (curated by Sarayu Kamat). We listened to the very erudite scholar Dr. Harsha Dehejia speak on the many moods of Krishna Kavya. I do not reside in Vaikuntha,  nor in the hearts of yogis. Where my Bhaktas sing my songs,  there I reside, O Narada! The invitation for the event said: "Krishna’s romantic presence is best understood as kavya and not as a katha, and that too as muktak, or fragmented moment of romantic pleasure. While enjoying the sensuality of Krishna’s shringara, a committed Rasika will endeavour to move it to shringar bhakti. Krishna shringara ultimately should lead to brahma jnana and therefore ananda" It was a pleasure listening to Dr. Dehejia, as he led us through the history of Indian Aesthetics, from the Vedas and the Upanishads, down to Brathrhari (Vakyapadiya, Sphota theory), Bharatamuni (Natyashastra, rasa theory), and Abhinavagupta (commenta...

This is the kitchen of my parents' home. Their day begins with two glasses of warm water, to which Amma adds a spoon of honey and some lemon. Appa finds a knife and plates, and sits down at the dining table to slice elchi bananas. It takes a while. They will eat the bananas later, with cinnamon powder and sugar. The milk is set to boil. The filter is filled with coffee powder; and boiling water is poured into it. The fabulous smell of Mysore coffee fills the air. Once the decoction and milk are ready, the first cup of coffee is had. It takes them an hour to complete their first round of morning activities. Recently my mother took a fall in the bathroom. It was not a major fall. But my sister, my cousin Girish and I have been taking turns to sleepover at their house for a few days, until things normalise. That's how I am here, watching these morning rituals. As I observe them moving around, I realise the mortality and fragility of the human body.  Someday, I will also get to thi...

- by Deepa Krishnan My brother-in-law Satish has set up a new factory near Pune. On Vijayadashami, we all went for the inauguration. It was such a happy day. Satish's parents came from Chennai for the event. My parents also came. We drove to the venue in two SUVs because there were several of us. The factory is very big, so we drove right in. One section of the shop floor, with our cars parked. There was lots of lamp lighting and ribbon cutting and tree planting :) Satish's dad cut the first ribbon, announcing a series of inaugurations of various sections of the factory. My parents inaugurated the machining section. Appa has a lot of experience cutting ribbons at various events, so he did it like a pro! Dad and mom inaugurating machining section Here is Satish's dad, checking out one of the steel rings that the factory produces. We all got a basic understanding of the products, the markets, prices, etc. It was very interesting. On the outside of the factory, a series of Ash...

- By Deepa Krishnan When I was growing up, this lane behind my mother's house used to be empty. The neighbourhood boys would play gully cricket here. We used to have sports events in this street. We made friends with all the children from other buildings on the street. We celebrated Ganpati. We hosted movie showings by rigging up cloth screens, and everyone came to watch. Nowadays there are cars parked on both sides and the road has become narrow. We don't see any street games these days in this part of the road. People don't talk much to others in the street, because everyone is busy watching TV. Kids from all the buildings in this street don't know each other. I was happy to see this girl cycling. It reminded me of my childhood, the old Bombay, in an era before cars multiplied.

- by Deepa Krishnan Yesterday I explored Mumbai with a group of 6 urban planning experts from around the world. In the morning we visited south and central Mumbai, seeing how the city gradually expanded northwards from its small beginnings in the Fort area. After lunch, we went to Navi Mumbai, taking in all the changes that have happened in Airoli, Turbhe, Belapur, Kharghar and Vashi. I saw 500 years of Mumbai's growth, all compressed into a single day. By the end of the day, I had developed an acute awareness of "public spaces" in Mumbai. By public spaces, I don't only mean places like the huge Oval Maidan or the popular Marine Drive. I mean space for activities at the neighbourhood level, such as small gardens, places for people to walk or jog, areas for holding community meetings, etc.  As a child growing up in Sion and Matunga, I had access to many such public spaces.  Our home in Sion was right next to Sion Fort, and we spent many happy evenings running around th...

- By Aishwarya Pramod Why Loiter is a campaign that anyone can join from anywhere. The idea behind the campaign is very simple: it encourages women to loiter aimlessly about their city and make use of its public spaces :). In the face of victim-blaming and increased restrictions on women’s mobility, the campaign wants to create a sense of a community of women in public space, so that we can remind ourselves and other women that we are not alone. This Sunday, I was going to meet a friend in Matunga. I saw the campaign on Facebook, so I took some pictures and hashtagged them #whyloiter. I took a short bus ride to bustling Maheshwari Udyan (King’s Circle) and met my friend for dinner at Spring Onion. The starters were especially good. We told ourselves we’d come back there some other day and eat only 3 or 4 starters, no need of main course. Then we wandered around near Five Garden and chilled… some photography happened there. Turns out my phone is not great at nigh...

- By Deepa Krishnan Yesterday I addressed a group of 25 girls from the University of Washington's Foster School of Business. They were here on a Women’s Lead­er­ship and Entre­pre­neur­ship program. It's called "Half the Sky", and it inspires students to make a dif­fer­ence through meet­ings with lead­ers and role mod­els all over India. Most of them are from the MBA program, but there are also a couple of students from other streams. The students are going to be in India for a month, studying women’s leadership, and learning about "social enterprises" that create business solutions to poverty and environmental issues. Apart from meeting lots of women in India, the group is also spending time with non-profits, learning about specific issues first-hand, and working with the non-profits on problem-solving recommendations. We spent an hour together, and I spoke about my life, my beliefs, decisions that I made along the way, and wh...

- by Deepa Krishnan These days we're doing a training / sensitization series at my office. It is a summer program for young people who work in the tourism industry in Mumbai. We're discussing a wide range of topics - caste, gender, education, legal system, history, architecture, and so on. The idea is to help these students speak with some level of depth about these issues. They meet and interact with many tourists each month - so it is very useful for them. I have myself also been enjoying these discussions on social, economic and political issues. And I'm looking forward to more of them. We have three interns this year, students from St Xavier's College (including my daughter Aishwarya!). They're helping to research topics and they're conducting the sessions. I'm the moderator, sort of. There is lots of participation. I love the dynamics, and especially I love way learning works when there's discussion and fun, and most importantly, when everyone ...

- By Deepa Krishnan In 2007, before the era where food shows took over Indian television, I went to a little village called Zaros in the island of Crete.  We stayed at Studios Keramos, a small B&B, where our hostess Katerina was famous for her fantastic breakfasts. She made fresh bread for us every morning, and also all kinds of other Greek peasant-style baked treats.  I peeped into her kitchen, saw her old oven, and fell in love with the idea of baking.  It was alien to me, this whole thing about ovens. I had seen clay tandoors in India, with naans being stuck to the sides. But Katerina's kitchen was my first look at a 'proper' oven.  It seemed like magic. Ordinary dough, transformed into pies with savoury and sweet fillings - how amazing it was! Sarikopita, spanakopita, kalitsounia...Katerina would pull all these Cretan specialties out of the oven, brown and delicious. To add to my delight, many were vegetarian, reflecting the abundant greens grown in the ...

- By Janaki Krishnan For youngsters, Navratri is a time of dance and merriment, through playing dandiya with friends and loved ones. It is said that at the end of the nine nights, young people end up finding the perfect life partner. For older people, Navratri is a time to show their devotion through prayer and fasting. I don't fall into either of these categories, because I can neither dance nor fast! But I still love Navratri.  When I was in school, our house would host Navratri celebrations. My sister and I would go round inviting other South Indian ladies in Matunga for vettalai pakku (pan supari).  Navratri 'golu' display at  Dr. Jayashree Rajagopalan's house When we visited other houses to see their 'golu' displays, the lady of the house would ask us to sing a song for Devi before giving us prasad. My sister, a good Carnatic singer, would use every opportunity to show her skill, while I was more interested in the packets of prasad.  My sister and I (she i...

-by Aishwarya Pramod Recently my mother and I attended a wedding reception at Chamda Bazaar (in Dharavi). The bride was the sister of Fahim, one of my mother's colleagues. A three-storeyed hall had been booked, with the men on the ground floor, women on the middle storey and the dining room on the top floor. The actual nikaah ceremony was over by the time we reached, so Fahim took us upstairs to join the social gathering that follows the ceremony.  The hall buzzed with the conversation of women and the shouts of children running about. We made our way towards the bride.  Fahim's family was extremely nice and welcoming. I muttered some inane greetings, grinned foolishly at everyone and then took to lurking behind my mother. We were soon called to have dinner, which I was really looking forward to. The dining room had about ten tables, each seating around eight people. Each table had a single large platter of mutton biryani, accompanied by a large bowl of raita.  Our table ...

 - By Deepa Krishnan I've been doing a lot of food walks lately. Last month I did a Matunga food-walk for the BMW-Guggenheim Foundation, as part of a 3-week Mumbai event that they organised. At the start of the walk, the organiser from BMW-Guggenheim Lab explains what the  lab is all about A food walk is, of course, a wonderful way to understand a country. Especially in India, where food is not just a personal dietary preference; but a reflection of a way of life. Our walk began outside the Astika Samaj temple, where I explained to the group how as a Palakkad Brahmin, I have so many  "food memories" associated with the temple.  The Samaj has been painted afresh as part of a major kumbhabhishekam ceremony.  But for me, this temple is more about food than religion :) :) For me, Astika Samaj will always be associated with their wonderfully dark nei-payasam which our neighbour Moorthy-mami brings us as prasadam (recipe here). Made of ghee, jaggery and rice, the p...