ABC Wednesday - 'H' for HOPE & Hand Cart: Kala Ghoda Arts Festival 2015 #12 : Cart of Hope

The Reverie Wagon (Cart of Hope)

Hand Cart also known as the 'Hath Gadi' here in India has been an ancient handmade source of transportation. Hand carts have been mentioned in literature as far back as the second millenium B.C. The Indian sacred book Rigveda states that men and women are as equal as two wheels of a cart.

In India, we still have a large population that uses the 'Hath Gadi' and relies on it for a daily living. It is still the only source of income for scrap distributors / collectors, farmers, vendors, goods carriers and many more.

The 'Hath Gadi' is a blessing for many poor families in cities as well as rural areas. The message here, to people from different walks of life is that the 'Hath Gadi' might just be a means of transporting goods but for thousands of people in our country, who are below the poverty line, it is an angel in disguise.

By creating this, the artist wants to touch their hearts and send out a message to people that 'what looks like trash to us is astonishingly a treasure to others'.

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ABC Wednesday - 'D' for Dessert

Dessert Corner at Saffron Spice, Powai. There was vanilla icecream with hot chocolate sauce, and gulab jamuns kept on the side. The mini pastries were a superhit with the kids and adults alike.

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ABC Wednesday - 'C' for Central Park

Central Park at Kharghar in Navi Mumbai is a huge park filled with landscaped gardens, an artificial pond with a fountain, an amphitheatre, musical and dance sculptures, jogging track and also children's park. With ample parking space and fresh clean air away from the city pollution, it will be the 3rd largest park in Asia after it is fully developed.

This fountain in the artificial pond is one of the many fountains here, and it looks much prettier when lighted after dark.

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ABC Wednesday - 'W' for Watermelons

Seasonal fruit - watermelon

At the wholesale market in Vashi.

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ABC Wednesday - 'U' for UNIFORM

Secondary School children in school 'uniform' after school.

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ABC Wednesday - 'X' for X-MAS DECORATIONS

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Fairy tale X-Mas decorations at Damian furniture store in Bandra.

These photos are from my 2006 archives.

HAPPY NEW YEAR TO ALL

 MUMBAI VIRTUAL TOURISTS

ABC Wednesday - 'W' for WATER

Queue for Daily WATER Requirement

at Cuffe Parade's Koli village (fishermen's colony)

ABC Wednesday - 'V' for VERSOVA JETTY

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The Versova jetty is approachable from Versova bus-stop (also called Vesawe). It is a ten to fifteen minutes walk through the fishermen's colony smelling the fresh sea breeze. One can get on one of these trawlers also with bikes, and cross over to reach Madh Island beach in Malad.

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 In this picture, you can see the other trawler on the opposite side too. Very closeby is where fishermen unload their fresh catch, and fish wives come here to buy directly from fishermen, and then sell fish in the Versova fish market. More from Versova jetty tomorrow.

ABC Wednesday - 'T' FOR TAJ MAHAL HOTEL

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THE TAJ MAHAL HOTEL BEFORE THE TERROR ATTACK

 

ABC Wednesday - 'S' for STARBUS

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The newStarbus from Mumbai's BEST's fleet of buses

ABC Wednesday - 'R' for RIDE

BOAT (LAUNCH) RIDE AT THE GATEWAY OF INDIA

A boat ride (cruise) into the harbour at the Gateway of India is a smooth fun ride.

I went for the half an hour ride on this boat with my 3 year old Krrish on 14 November, which is celebrated as Children's Day in India,  to commemorate our first Prime Minister Pandit Jawharlal Nehru's love for children. It was his first time on the boat at the Gateway of India. 

On the way back, the view of the Taj Palace Hotel, The Taj Intercontinental and the Gateway of India was a gorgeous sight. See it in my 'My World' post here.

ABC Wednesday - 'Q' for QUEUE

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This is the queue for railway tickets and monthly & quarterly passes at Vashi railway station in Navi Mumbai. The queues are usually within the station premises, except for rush hours and weekends when they extend outside the station.

The mall you can see in the backgound is Raghuleela Mall.

ABC Wednesday - 'P' fo PLAZA

PLAZA  CINEMA

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Plaza is one of the few old movie theaters of Mumbai, located in Dadar West. It was damaged during the 1993 bomb blasts/riots. It has now re-opened and remains one of the few theatres in Mumbai that show Marathi movies albeit almost as a Matinee show, and regular shows of Hindi movies

ABC Wednesday - 'O' for 'OLD'

HAPPY NEW YEAR

GOODBYE TO THE 'OLD' YEAR', WELCOME THE 'NEW YEAR'

Today is the first day of the Hindu New year marked by the new moon of Diwali. It is celebrated with fireworks, exchanging visits and sweets with friends and relatives.

ABC Wednesday - 'N' for NARIMAN POINT

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Nariman Point is the business hub of Mumbai. Named after Khurshid Nariman, a Bombay Municipal Corporation corporator, it has the distinction of having a world record high price of an apartment sold for 8.62 million (USD), at an astonishing $2488 (Rs.97,842) per square foot. (Stats from Wikipedia).

Nariman Point is located on land reclaimed from the sea. It has some of India's premier business houses such as Air-India, Indian Express, Mittal Towers, LIC...
The average property cost and rentals per sq. feet in Nariman Point are about 1.5 times higher than Manhattan in New York.

Abc Wednesday - 'M' for Machhi-wali

Mumbai's Machhi-walis - Fisher Women

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The Mumbai Machhi-walis belong to the Koli (fisherfolk) community. The fishermen go out to sea and bring fresh catch. Now it is the job of the fisherwomen (also called fishwives) to sell the fish in local fish markets. There are those too, who buy fish from the wharf in early morning hours to sell in the market.

The machhi-walis (Kolins) are hard-working, aggressive by nature and fiercely economically independent women. A Kolin's day begins at the break of dawn. After cooking food for the entire family, she buys fish from the wharf and sells it at the local fish market, or even from home to home (to regular customers) till the fish is all sold out.

Standing out distinctly in a crowd, with sarees, noisy language (including abusive phrases) and traditional, chunky jewellery, the Machhi-wali invests most of her savings in gold.

Living a simple life, their food is usually curry, rice and fried fish.

ABC Wednesday - 'L' for LAUGHTER

'L' for LAUGHTER

I have clicked this set of photos on TV on a show called 'The Great Indian Laughter Challenge' which was one of the very successful reality shows on Indian television, about a year ago.

The comedian in the photo is Umer Shariff, a Pakistani comedian, stage, film and TV actor, director and producer. Before he began his act each time he came on stage, he began with funny exppressions & faces like this, and we burst out laughing even before he spoke.

My TV picture quality is excellent, but I took the photos too close, so the poor picture quality :-(

They are not very clear with all those lines but that make the photos look even more funny.

This beautiful lady, Parizad Kolah was the host of the show.

'L' for LIFELINE & LOCAL TRAIN

Mumbai's local train is Mumbai's lifeline.

Mumbai train travel seems like madness to someone who is new to the city or a visitor in the city of dreams. The Mumbai local trains carry more than 6.1 million commuters on a daily basis. It has the highest passenger density of any urban railway system in the world. Overcrowding is a major problem, especially during peak (office going) hours

To view more photos about Mumbai Local train, click here.

Happy ABC Wednesday.

ABC Wednesday - 'K' for KALA-KHATTA

KALA-KHATTA GOLA

Gola is 'ice slush' on a wooden gola stick. The gola wala pushes the gola stick into the crushed ice ball, pours the syrup generously, with a dash of lime, and sprinkles some masala. The most popular flavour is kala-khatta, made from the fruit 'jamun' or Indian blackberry. The colourful bottles of syrup will tempt you to stop by and slurrp one.

The gola is yummy and refreshing and quenches your thirst but one cannot be sure of quality of the syrup and the water (from which ice is made). There are outlets where you can get good quality syrup with gola ice made of mineral water too.

ABC Wednesday - 'J' for JUINAGAR

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'J' for JUICE

The Railway Juice Stall at Dadar Railway Station

ABC Wednesday - 'I' for Idlis

Idlis are steamed rice cakes made of rice and fermented lentil batter, served with sambar or chutney (which are South Indian dips). They are popular on the breakfast table and also as a light snack in India, in not just South Indian homes.