The outsider
This blog is about making Mumbai your home. For an outsider like me, who came to Mumbai recently, this blog is a DIY and a self help forum rolled into one. Here you will find interviews, stories and profiles of people who, like me, have made Mumbai their home. Every now and then there will also be random provocative ranting about the city --- the kind that goes with blogs and invites evil from all directions. Hope to see you here more often. Rave on!
Disclaimer
The author asserts that he isn't qualified enough to opine on Antichrist in the tradition of modern film writing which means that he's going to try, as much as possible, to stay away from boring and pedantic references to shots, hand held zooms, camera angles, story, characters and the overall disgusting aesthetic, moral or sexual appeal of the film.
Dear Reader,
Mumbai needs a pied piper. Its youth is in a crisis. Recently, the findings of a study conducted by the psychiatry department at the KEM hospital in Mumbai were reported. Interviewing nearly 100 youngsters booked in the Juhu rave party case almost a year ago, the study concluded that the youngsters think smoking marijuana is safe and there is no real harm in doing drugs.
Dear Reader,
What follows is a diary entry I wrote in July last year, a few days after I came to Bombay. I was too scared to publish this then!
I am still scared but I guess haven't shown you my face for so long that my sense of shame overrides my fear. Now, if I am dead or kidnapped tomorrow, please let them know I did this for you (and for me).
July 8, 2008
Dear Reader,
I am humbled.
Newspapers published detailed articles about the documents you need to have to be able to prove your identity and vote; we explained how the electronic voting machine works, (though they have been around for more than a decade now); we asked you for your opinions and the issues that are close to your heart. Hundreds of hours of sponsored television news debates and talk shows and live reports poured down the tube everyday, but you didn't vote!
Instead you showed us how passive aggressive you are!
Dear Reader,
Welcome to my blog!
As you may know, this blog is about making Mumbai your home.
One day, I think it was in February, I got up in the morning with a question in my mind: After moving to a new city, at what point does one start calling it home? Almost a year after being here, I still find myself telling people that I am from Delhi. Sometimes my alacrity surprises me.
Over the next few posts, I hope to tell you more about my 70 year old maid, Shanta Bai, who comes and leaves as she pleases, takes an off when she wants (she hasn't been coming for four days now) and bosses over me when I complain; about the cat I made friends with in the neighbourhood; and the one taxi driver I met once who wouldn't listen to anything but death metal.
