Piranhas in the Sea of Tranquility?

Tuesday, 12th July, 1845 hrs - Hiren, my room partner came and asked, "Did you hear that there has been blasts across Mumbai?" I jumped to check on IBN Live and NDTV and could not believe my eyes. Six blasts across the city and in a span of just around 40 mins. As millions across this city, I was immediately worried about my sister who was around Mahalaxmi at that time. And as we all know by now, the cell phone lines were jammed beyond hope. And I was left only with the feeling of acute helplesness. After endless redials, I was lucky enough to get through to her and know that she was safe and sound and in control.
All day today, the entire media is glaring with headlines that the city is limping back to normalcy overnight. Mumbai is an amazing city of resilience and I should say, has a high elasticity coefficient to calamities, natural or artificial.

But what remains to be thought is how long will Mumbaiites continue to be resilient? How long will be our security, intelligence and other agencies continue to make temporary and short term patch ups?

Snapshots of the rain

Unblocking the bloggers block

Hi all,
It has almost been a month that I had written my last post.....

But then my good friend Vinaya, an avid blogger, said that there is something called a bloggers block. So I hope it was one of that. But then it has been a roller coaster month. No pressure at the begining of June and then suddenly awful pressure.

The last week or so has been a week of incidents. The month gone by was academic grilling in real terms.... Exams in the afternoons, classes in the mornings. And this coupled with assignments and presentations. Exams were a nicer revelation this time along. One with open laptop, open book and no network; another with open books, open notes, open reference books and closed discussions;) ; and the other with all closed but a sheet of formulas allowed!!! Readers of the blog in college and school, please do not envy us. Its actually more cruel!!!

Actually, all those plans of doing regular studies and keeping up with the class, never works out and that what makes the exam time more gruelling. These days sleeping at 0300 hrs has become common place. Never in my life, have I been awake till 0450 and appeared at a exam at 0830. What more has this place in store for a soldier?? In one of my first posts I had mentioned about the cafe that opens and functions past midnight. Its a saviour and a place frequented for freshening up. The young lad, Jairam, who I call seth, makes "marvellous" maggi, tosses the egg bhurji in fire like a mexican exotica...and ensures we keep awake till wee hours of dawn!!!

A phenomenon has been the discovery of Ninni Da Dhaba, a gr8 sardar's dhaba on Versova Link road. Whenever you feel down, just go across and start off with his chilli mili kababs, which makes the "down" feeling even more frequent!! They perhaps make the best kababs I have ever had. So succulent, mouth watering and so yummy. A strong contendor to Bade Mia of "south" Mumbai.

The last five days has been torrential and bad. I felt like it was almost 26/7 revisiting and even sent a mail to some of my friends with pictures. The govt / administration keeps saying that they are all geared up and prepared. But unfortunately in my motherland, it is all a sham as the common man remains the greatest stupid for the holders of power. Its amazing how consistently the bureaucracy keeps fooling.

Another event that I have been pondering about, is the CBI filing a chargesheet against leaking of information from the Naval War room. The headlines are amazing and touches the national pride gravely....will continue this in the next post. At least some of you will come back.......

Have a good and great time ......