SPIRIT OF MUMBAI

As the Raven flies… You bet! You read the heading right. Raven is the name of helicopter flown by Captain Mody, around Mumbai with the winners of Hindustan Times’s,‘India’s Super60’-contest. January 26, being Monday-holiday was an extension of lazy-Sunday. As usual I picked up Hindustan Times from the stack of newspapers and extracted HT-Café. ‘Super60’, whopper response to the ‘INDIA COOL CONTEST’ printed next to HT-Café’s masthead caught my eyeballs. But of course, I had emailed an article describing the sixty things and personalities, which make India cool. Now over to HT-Café’s Super60 list from A to Z. I started comparing my selection list with the published icons… ‘Abhinav Bindra, A R Rahman, Aravind Adiga, APJ Abdul Kalam, Ayurveda, Azim Premji, Backwaters of Kerala…. The list went on. I was like… oh yes! It’s all mine. I scanned the center spread. The Red-stripe at the end declared ‘FIVE WINNING ENTRIES’. Five? How’s that? On 21st January, Hindustan Times had adverti...

Yes! Mumbai smells. When the train leaves Bandra station, chugs towards Mahim, the dark salty creek odour overpowers all the Mogras, Chamelis worn by the ladies in the compartment. That day was no different. Our train had just left Bandra station. I was expecting the usual creek odour, even crinkled my nose in anticipation. But hey, wait! What’s this? Abracadabra? Has the creek water been replaced with Tata ’s eau-de-cologne? Or my nose been dreaming Premium’s eau-de-cologne? The source of cologne stilettoed in the compartment and took the opposite seat. Instinctively my stare followed her from toe, stilettos actually to her head shimmering with highlighted, silky hair. In between there were micro-skirt, spaghetti –top, manicured nails-painted black a-la-Aishwarya Rai in Dhoom2, tattooed shoulder blade, wine red juicy lips, diamond studded upturned nose. I can go on and on, describing the PYT (Pretty Young Thing). Suffice it to say that the total effect / the end result was str...