table for two

a table for two, at the VT / CST mac donalds.

mangoes in may

the summer months are associated with this luscious, delightful fruit. we have it in many different forms - from cut pieced to icecreams and milkshakes to its pulp and its pickles. but the sweltering summer is nearly over, and so is the mango season. i'm looking forward to the monsoons now.

welcome back mm

meant to be blogged way back on 2008-04-25, this pic has been lying in a folder for over two years now. i thought it'd be apt to post this today. mindless mumbai is back after an year of hibernation. and this time i've removed the word 'daily' from the title. a lot has changed in the past year, and even more since may 2006 when i began mindless mumbai. looking back at what i've posted i realise that my perspective about a lot of things is now quite different.

whether same or different, old or new; i want to continue photographing mumbai and sharing it with the world. my point of view, my two cents. cheers!

bhaji on the beach

exams got over today. all, but one, were quite ok. i've decided not to think too much about that particular one right now. its over and done with, and i can't do anything till the results are out, which seems eternally away, especially since the vivas will get over only by 13th may.

saloni, saurabh, mohit and me unwound in town after the exams. most others went to some restaurant or for a movie, but we felt like being in the open. walked a good 2.5 kms along marine drive, before reaching girgaon chowpatty (thats mumbai's most famous beach). hogged on a lot of chaat: pani puri, dahi papadi chaat, cheeze pizza and veg grilled sandwich; followed by butta (roasted corn) whilst sitting on the sands. then we headed to the juice centre at haji ali to end the evening with their delicious but way over priced milkshakes...

the photo is from a stall at the beach, from where we ordered the sandwhich and the pizza. in the photo are the ingredients for pav bhaji, as well as the finished dish. on the extreme right of the pan is the bhaji (veggies) which are continuously stirred and rotated, on the left is the mixture of tomatoes, onions, chillies etc, that goes into the bhaji; while the guy on the right is warming the pav (bread) in between these two. each of the three dishes in the front is the bhaji, topped with coriander leaves, and a handful of onions, along with a slice of lemon; and a dollop of butter.

the two cooks had no objection to me clicking the photo, as long as the name of their stall was not clicked. that worked perfectly for me!
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thanks to all the visitors visiting mindless mumbai, for the time period that i've not been able to visit other city daily photo blogs. you'll are the motivation in keeping up with the daily, well almost daily, posting. will be paying you'll a visit soon...

pasta.... just the packets

completely unrelated to anything going on nowdays. this is just a random photo i found in my archive, and i decided to not-think-much before posting it. we've been studying hard in college :) on the other hand, by some chance this may actually not be such a random photo, after all. who wouldn't want a great pasta treat after all the studying.... yummm....

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this photo is a part of this
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photo id: 3875

plucking kairis

we got the watchman to pluck out some kairis (raw mangoes) yesterday from our mango-tree. we had planted the tree over 13 years ago, and it just started bearing fruit last year. we can't wait for the mangoes to ripen on the tree, because somebody or the other from the street usually plucks them out out. the raw mangoes though, make for lip-smacking pickles.
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previous photo of last years' kairis here

raw mangoes

mangoes are here, well almost here. had the seasons first aam-ras today, though it was a market-one, not the home made one. the home made ras tastes infinitely better. this is a photo from last summer, kaccha kairis grown by nana. we couldn't wait till they would ripen as passer bys would pluck them off the tree with a stone / ball. but the kairis made for yummy pickles!
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aam-ras = mango pulp; relished along with puris. puris are, well, a sort of fried bread?
kazccha kairis = raw mangoes
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seems like i forgot to add 'mindless mumbai' to this photo...
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photo id: 5716

icecream, street-style

mewad ice-cream is synonymous with ice-cream on the streets. it's usually hand made each day by a single / group of persons, and often the maker and seller is the same person. found in all parts of mumbai, especially in khau-gullys and on beaches. aswhini from MMO and me were to once do a story on these guys, but it never happened. found this piece in The Hindu about mewad ice cream, quite an interesting read.
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for non-indian readers: mewad is a region in southern rajasthan, a few thousand kms north west of mumbai
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photo clicked at 7 bungalows beach in june 2005
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6000+ visitors. thanks!

samovar

samovar at jehangir art gallery. though i know nothing about its past, i find it a bit over rated. its a very popular joint though. they seem to even have a book on the making / continuing of the restaurant. the waiters kind of reminded me of koshy's in bangalore... and i don't think bhugra-channa go down very well with beer

fresh fruits and vegetables

fruit seller. called bhaji-wallah in hindia. almost everyone here buys their stock of fruits and vergetables every 2-3 days or so; some even prefer to buy it daily. and in spite of all the food bazaar and department stores, buying produce from the local market remains the most popular option; not to mention the most convenient too: not only do many of these guys home deliver the order free-of-charge; but one can also get back to them the next day and complain in case a particular fruit did not turn out to be sweet enough. (this is done especially when it comes in mangoes)
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we were working on mangalore study trip work: dipie and me are dealing with the market typologies in the city, and the word market has been buzzing in our head all evening.
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photo clicked in june 2005 at 7 bungalows, andheri (w)

class lunch

thats my class, everyday at lunch time. we have this tradition, being followed for the last four years, of sitting in two long straight rows facing each other, the early-birds getting the back rest. the linear arrangement doesn't allow one to talk to more than four people on either side, but food gets passed to everyone. if someone's packed lunch is green veggies, then the dabba (tiffin-box) usually switches hands through the entire group and reaches back to its owner without considerable reduction in quantity. pizzas, pasta, sandwiches, sweets, paneer (something like cottage cheeze) etc on the other hand don't reach more than three pairs of lunch-ers beyond the origin.

birthday cake

one of our design professors (but that's too formal a word for this person) celebrated his birthday today, and we kind of forced him to get cake. (its quite simple do this: get a group of 35+ people who sing 'happy birthday' on top of their voices, and then immediately break into a '
cake-cake-cake' jingle once the birthday song is complete)
the cake said "for my hard working students"; that left us wondering if we should suffix a "ly" to "hard". "hardly" may be more appropriate for us...

happy birthday kalpit, and best wishes for the year ahead!

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this birthday celebration had nothing to do with the birthday in the earlier post.

christmas goodies

wine and chocolates, in my refrigerator

pizza hut - issues with cleanliness

pizza hut doesn't seem to be very particular about hygiene. this pic was sometime in january, at the juhu-tara road outlet. used plates stacked up on the floor, along with pizza pans, right outside the elevator, bang next to the dustbin.

today at the lokhandwala outlet, the ketchup bottles had traces of ketchup all over the caps, and the oregano and chilli-flakes containers were greasy. can't they wipe all these clean before a new group of diners seat themselves?

sinful binging

4 days of festivities, ensures a lot of sweets...

guilt free binging - right off the streets

all of us hog on street food, and more often than not its either deep fried (vadas, samosas, bhajias) or has doubtable liquid contents (chutneys, sauces, golas, pani-puris). but in some parts of the city are vendors such as this one, who sell plates of assorted cut-fruit.

this was outside the taraporevala aquarium, and i opted the water-melon plate over the oily thali in the aquarium's canteen. in the fruit plate: water-melon, pineapple, chickoo, cucumber, papaya, beetroot, apple all for 15 rupees

sea food, mumbai style

the kolis are amongst the earliest inhabitants of mumbai. today, this fishing community is restricted to enclaves in gorai, versova, juhu, bandra, colaba etc. untreated sewage being let out into the sea, infrastructure projects that traverse the coasts and stiff competition from north indian vendors who provide home delivery of fish have all threatened the community's way of living.

as a part of the mumbai festival which takes place every january, a 'koli sea food festival' was held at versova and at colaba fishing villages. i had covered the versova festival for mumbai mirror online, and these women, dressed in all their finery were running one of the stalls. despite being vegetarian, the aromas & sights were tempting...

pepsi, mangola & sprite

empty bottles, on the counter outside the canteen in college. on the day when there was not a drop of water - on 04 april, 2007.. those crazy days when the entire class was about to flunk

stomach 2

at stomach II, seven bungalows

stomach is a really popular chinese eatery in this area. their sauces are specially yum, and they sell them in bottles too.