nightlifemumbai

- by Deepa Krishnan Horace van Ruith, a painter of German origin, arrived in Bombay in the late 1800's. He stayed in Cumballa Hill and established a studio there, at what was called the Cumballa Hill Family Hotel (which is now the Parsee General Hospital). Van Ruith painted landscapes, as well as portraits. But his career really took off when he started to do these Oriental scenes, and found patronage from Indian royalty as well as Prince Arthur, Duke of Connaught. The painting above is of a Brahmin household, says Sotheby's. To me it looks more like a small local temple courtyard, given the sadhu sitting in the corner, the tiling on the wall, the temple bells and the woman returning after offering prayer. Perhaps it is a small shrine, part of a nobleman's large private wada. I liked all the little details in the picture; they are so very real and authentic. No foreigner could paint these from memory, so I am sure there was a photo or a series of photos for reference. Photo...

I was happy to be featured in Tourism India's Cover Story on women entrepreneurs in tourism. Interviewer: Mumbai Magic is considered as one of the rarest Responsible Travel experiences in India. How did it all begin? Deepa: I graduated in 1990 with an MBA from the Indian Institute of Management, Calcutta. I spent nearly two decades of my career in the corporate world, mainly in banking technology. I travelled widely due to my work, and met people from many countries. My journey in tourism only started in my late 30’s, when I realized that India has so much more to offer to tourists than just monuments and shopping. So I set up a guided tours company that offers bazaar walks, heritage walks, art walks, food walks, home-cooking, textile trails, craft trails etc. Initially, it was just a hobby, which I did along with my corporate career. But what started as just a hobby in 2006 has now become the largest pan-Indian guided tours company in the inbound segment, offering offbeat experie...

- by Deepa Krishnan In the late 1700's and early 1800's, Jews from Iraq began arriving in Calcutta and Mumbai. It was not the first time Arabic speaking Jews had made their presence felt in India. The Great Mughal Akbar had a Jew in his court, and so did some subsequent Mughal emperors. Surat was one of the major ports of the Mughal empire, and Jewish merchants were well-established there, trading with the British East India Company. As Mumbai prospered in the 1800's, Jews from Iraq, Syria, Afghanistan and Yemen began arriving in Mumbai in significant numbers. A lot of them came from Iraq, and so they were called Baghdadi Jews. There was already another Jewish community in Mumbai, the Bene-Israel (Children of Israel). Believed to be one of the "ten lost tribes" of Israel, they had been in India for many centuries. The Bene-Israel were quite different from the Baghdadis - they spoke Marathi, and looked more Indian than Middle-Eastern. After many centuries in Mahara...

-by Aishwarya Pramod and Janaki Krishnan Like all Palakkad Iyers, I love kanatha vadam. But whenever I think of it, it's always with a twinge of guilt. Not because kanatha vadam is unhealthy. Rather, it is because the dish takes a humongous effort to make, but almost no time to finish off. All that work for only a moment of deliciousness? So self-indulgent. :P Non-Palakkad-Iyers might ask, what are kanatha vadams? At the risk of sounding clinical, they are steamed rice flat-cakes that are sundried to make papads :). During the papad-making process, a few of them are set aside for immediate eating (without drying). My grandmother has loved kanatha vadam since she was a young girl. She penned down the recipe and her memories associated with it. Here is what she wrote. Writing down the recipe xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx Kanatha Vadam by Janaki Krishnan I learnt to make kanatha vadam at a schoolgoing age. Kanatha vadam means "thick vadam". It's made...

- by Deepa Krishnan Spotted a mom with a whole bunch of schoolkids tagging along. They were on their way to our nearby municipal school. The kids were all dolled up and taking a snow tableau. Snow in Mumbai. With coconut palms :)  I asked, "Who made it?". "Me of course!", the mom said. "What is the school going to do with it?", I asked. "They are having a party", she replied, and all the kids giggled together. Pure joy.  My New Year is made.  And then they walked off all together, with much anticipation (and lipstick) :-D

- by Deepa Krishnan Haji Ali dargah has been in the news lately, because of the agitation to allow women into the sanctum. I went there a couple of years ago, when we were not allowed to access the mazar (mausoleum). There was a side-door, through which women could go up to a certain point.  Thus far and no further Closest that women can get to the tomb Given the way the access is organised, with multiple gates and enough space for queuing, it would be really easy to ensure equal but segregated access to the mazar for men and women. Women don't particularly want to jostle with men, anyway. It could work just like a traffic light, no? If we can manage cars, why not humans?  To deny women and allow only men, is a really jaundiced view of the world. The sooner we change such mindsets, the better. Prayer area outside I posted a series of 30 photos, showing the common areas, as well as the women-only areas. You can see the photos here, on the Mumbai Magic page . This is a beautifu...

- by Deepa Krishnan   Whenever I go to the markets, I wonder about the women who sit there, running small businesses. What sort of life do they have? How do they survive in the city?  Recently I came across this coriander-and-lemon seller. She was wearing her traditional green bangles and mangalsutra , but she had switched from cotton to synthetic sarees. She probably finds synthetics easier to wash and maintain, especially in the monsoons. And there is less wear-and-tear on the sarees, making it more economically viable. I tried to imagine what her day was like. She has probably woken up at 4 am, and gone to the big market at Dadar or Vashi or Byculla, to buy at wholesale rates. It is likely that she had no time or inclination to make tea at home. Perhaps the rest of the family was fast asleep at that time. It is likely that she travelled by train, with an empty basket on her head. At the wholesale market, she must have walked around, trying to find a good rate. After buying ...

- By Deepa Krishnan If you're a Tamilian living in Mumbai, there's a pretty good chance your cupboards contain something from Co-optex. Probably a bunch of hand-spun cotton towels. Or a nice cotton veshti. Or a handloom saree. My family has been buying all of these from Co-optex for many years now. Co-optex is the brand name of the Tamil Nadu Handloom Weavers Cooperative Society. Last month I was invited to attend their lecture-demonstration on the handloom weaves of Tamil Nadu. Although I am Tamilian, there are many small weaving clusters of Tamil Nadu about which I know nothing. So this was the perfect opportunity to meet friends and learn new things. The lec-dem was very informative. Knowledgeable and experienced staff from Co-optex showed us samples of the weaves, and told us about the diverse weaving traditions of Tamil Nadu. I learnt many new terms and developed a deeper appreciation for the complexities of the weaves. I was also very impressed by all the changes happenin...

- by Deepa Krishnan Today I went to the independence day celebrations at my school. And I learnt what freedom means. The girls from my school presented an energetic, physically demanding - and very liberating show. The audience - students ranging from 5 years to 15 years - shouted out their encouragement. The mutual energy was infectious and electrifying. In an exhilarating flash, I realised something: this generation of girls has a sense of personal body freedom that my generation simply did not have. We would not have leaped with so much abandon. We would not have tossed our heads back and postured so defiantly; and if we had indeed done so, I don't know if the audience would have cheered us on so wildly. The background music was a patriotic song - a soldier's song, a man's song, really. But the girls gave it their own interpretation. My photos really don't do justice to what I saw. These girls were not doing the usually Bollywood dances with sexualised poses. They ...

- By Deepa Krishnan Recently a lady from Business Standard interviewed me. She asked me the about preservation of Mumbai's heritage buildings; and whether the common man was aware or interested in it.  I replied that there is a small, highly educated, elite group in the city which is interested in heritage preservation, but the common man of Mumbai has far more pressing issues in life and doesn't really care. Then last week, we did a Fort Heritage Walk for a group of women from very low income backgrounds. None of them had a college degree. It was also the first time we did a tour in Marathi. So far, our heritage walks have been in English, which is the language of the elite in India. This group of 24 women came from Pune by the Sinhagad Express. They were brought to Mumbai on a picnic by Yojak , a non-profit that works in education in Pune's slums (Renu who runs Yojak is in white in the centre). The women are teachers, they teach small children in their respective neighb...

- 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 Aishwarya Pramod General scene at Rampart Row Queen of Hearts sarees and fabric stall (run by mother and daughter) Inability of my mother to resist red saree at Queen of Hearts Self getting suckered by awesome indigo prints at Mura Collective from Delhi Cute pig I bought for my window-sill: Laquercraft from Chennapattana, sold by Varnam Mother taking artsy photos of me and cousin Random art plus environmental messages Random art plus grandparents KEC Greengames - reviving traditional Indian games to improve children's motor skills and emotional intelligence One more general public General public under tree (it was hot today) Festival Summary: Heat and crowds. Random art. Some nice stalls. Next time I'll try to go for the events.