koli dance

these kids were reharsing yesterday in the college's auditorium. they had their finale today.. all of them are dressed up as kolis, the fishing community that originally inhabited mumbai.

flowering balconies

its very rare to see balconies in mumbai full of potted flowering plants. even rarer to see three of them in the same building. photo clicked at peddar road, some time last month.

see more photos in mindless mumbai about 'nature'  here.

update 2010-aug-17: a lot of folks seem to end up on this page while searching for something on the lines of flowering-blacony-plants-in-mumbai. while i'd love it if you hang on to explore Mindless Mumbai, you could check out the urban gardener blog instead.

of hills conquered

residential towers are springin up in all parts of the city. this one is a few years old, and right next to gilbert hill. in fact its as high as the hill too, blocking out half the view of the hill when seen from juhu circle. gilbert hill is a few million years old rock formation, formed by the cooling of molten lava. its just been declared as a national monument, and hopefully there shall be no more blatant vandalisation of the hill any time in the future
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can you spot "mindless mumbai"?
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have been working on housing design for most of the day today

vihar lake

photo of vihar lake, as seen from the bahndup water treatment plant. mumbai is perhaps the only metropolis in the world to have a national park within the city limits. the borivali national park is home to incredible diversity of flora and fauna, including some big wild cats, along with three lakes: vihar, powai and tulsi. this photo is a complete contrast to what i had posted for the feb theme day about what people think, when they think of mumbai. see that pic here .

alleyway

in of the many alleyways off colaba causeway
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photo clicked in jan 2006. was there for visual studies exercise: taking a reference about some spot in the city from any text / movie; and then responding to the space in one's own way. arjun and me had written a fictional scene set in leopold

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!

come rain, come shine

this guy has added a removable roof to his scooter, possible to shade himself and family from sun / rain. i don't know how effective it is though. in the photo, he is ferrying his two kids back home.

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photo clicked today at juhu circle

work and play

everybody has to work... however pleasant the times...
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photographer at juhu beach

run down building

old building at andheri flyover - sv road junction. seems to be a timber post and beam structure. houses a girls' school and a computer training institute. no reason to post this today.

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

krvia exhibition

over the next 3 days, college is going to be inspected by the council of architecture. a lot of work has been put up, and every pinnable-surface has been occupied. all over people are running around, best exemplifying the floating population of our college. being in college during exhibitions is quite fun, there's always something interesting happening somewhere, especially if the workshops are on too. the photo is of the 4th yr, first semester design project in our studio.
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meanwhile, i'm not going to be able to visit any city daily photo blogs till april end, college schedules are going to get hectic, and exams are round the corner. but, i hope to keep posting regularly. c ya, all.

long week - fun weekend

blogging after 5 days, partly because of too much college work, and partly because the net was down.. anywat, after a rather long week, some of us went to town last evening. maitri, richa, anushri, saurabh and me did a round of a pichwai painting exhibition at the museum, mo-of designed Amazing art exhibit at jehangir, then to samovar; followed by a peek at the painting on the navy dockyard wall and then to the asiatic steps; where we bumped into palak from 1st yr, who drove us around till churchgate station. had chaat at satkars before heading home, then i watched the second half of 'kite runner' followed by 'taare zameen par'... its been a fun weekend... getting charged up for the coming week now.....
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oh, and, the photo is of the painting on the naval dockyard wall. it seems to be in a controversy between the authorities who commissioned it, the artist and the mcgm's heritage committee.

(maternal) grandfather - grandmother park

nana-nani parks dot many parts of the city, and are usually the result of some ngo / citizen group / ALM's efforts in adding to the open green spaces. because many of them come up on fragments of land that may have originally been dumping grounds / barren fields, these parks are of varying forms. like this one, in 7 bungalows; at 250 long and 8 metres wide, this park is sandwiched by roads on both sides, and was granted permission to be built, only on the condition that the municipal corporation can break it down to expand the road, as and when required. it charges 2 rs as an entry fee that helps maintain the walking track and the greenery. of course there is the debate of parks being open to all sections of society, and whether they should charge any entry fee at all, but that calls for a separate post
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"nana-nani park" translate to grandpa-grandma parks...the maternal ones, to be more precise
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i'm exhausted right now, so apologies if the above description was incoherent. have a construction submission on thursday, a design jury on friday and a thesis jury on saturday. won't be able to visit any cdpb blogs till the weekend. have fun photo-blogging everybody...
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5000+ visitors!

b.e.s.t.

BEST's buses are mumbai's road-based mass transit option. they are extremely popular especially to get to and fro from the railway stations; quite safe (for the commuters within the buses atleast, while for the other vehicles on the road it's a separate story...); and very economical. but their cash resgisters seem to be in the red for ever, and they've now started selling a lot more advertisement space within the buses. hopefully things will get better...

girgaon... all over again !

the eighth semester design project, stacked amenities in girgaon had gone quite well. got confirmation about the same today.
:)

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photo shot from within one of the buildings in girgaon. i like the way the opening frames the other three buildings.
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stacked amenities project sheets here
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previous posts about girgaon:
city lights
time for celebration
girgaon, yet again
graveyard
chawls
community service
in between spaces
red roses
signage
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10 new images added to the header loop... they are all cropped from previous posts; try guessing what the photos are! clicking on the header photo will take you to that post.
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note to self: list of projects to be put up for coa announced. projects listed marks wise.

"our donors"

my thesis project is set in my school's campus. i visited the campus today after many many months. to click a couple of snaps. there have been a lot of changes, as are bound to happen. more about the schools, colleges in the campus, about the campus and about my thesis coming up in the next few months. meanwhile here are the busts of the founders of my my high school, seth hansraj morarji and his wife bai kabibai. for some reason all our school literature referred to them as "our donors"; i think "our founders" will be a more appropriate title.

too much on my mind

have been quite frustrated with college people and work in the last few days... today, probably for the first time in four years, chose to lunch by myself outside college
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photo of the gulmohar trees at hanging gardens, malabar hill

commerce and markets

have been tied up with study trip works' final presentation for urban design. our group is dealing with commerce and markets in mangalore. past two days have been really hectic, not to mention the disagreements over layouts and graphics. but at the end of it, i'm quite happy with the work dipie and me done. it does qualify as fourth year level work and hopefully increases content value of the overall class's study.

photograph is of the market along parle east station road. the areas around the railway stations in mumbai are important commerce zones apart from being transport nodes, and almost all stations have markets just outside them. i'm guessing that because these roads were never planned to hold markets, the road systems outside stations remain congested with commuters, shoppers, auto rickshaws, taxis, BEST buses, hawkers, vendors etc. all this leads to very very slow moving traffic....

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i got the header image working again. a random image from the blog should show up every time you visit mindless mumbai, and its click-able ie if you click on that image, it'll take you to the post wherein that photo is blogged
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4500+ visitors. thanks!

graphics

we had a little tiff about our urban design / mangalore study trip work's presentation's buttons' graphics and layout today. am a very no-frills-attached person and some didn't agree with my differences...
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photo of taraporevala aquarium at marine drive. mumbai's plans to have a world-class aquarium facility seem to have gone down the sea....
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what do you think of the fish on the façade?

zooming up

a lot of discussions about redevelopment today. most of the issues it seems are sorted out
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i like the way the colours have come out in this photo. this building is right next to mine, and i've been clicking it very often. many of the snaps of construction workers are from here
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note to self: where do you get the cheapest dish-washer?

class t-shirt

we finally got our class t-shirts today!!! we ordered them in two colours, black and white; with the same graphic and line on each. the graphic is an image of all that are / have been a part of our class.

we had originally used this composition for the cover page of our 3rd yr theory-of-design book on our families' stories of mumbai (can see some pages of this book in my other blog, here). the original image was worked on many many times over (by manmohit, aparna, maitri, saurabh with inputs from many of us) before we finalised on this....

and then last week saurabh and maitri got around to ordering, collecting money and finally distributing the t-shirts. three cheers for them !!! the photo session that followed the distribution, was crazy, as always...

the line on the back reads:

if you cant dazzle them with brilliance
baffle them with bullshit

theme day: when people think of mumbai they think of ...

when people think of mumbai they think of businesses and money, of bollywood and glamour, of people and work culture, of expensive realty and inadequate infrastructure... but in all this, one is never alone, there will always be a crowd ahead / behind / around you ...

today is the monthly theme day, and for feb 2008 the theme is "When people think of my city, they think of . . ."

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what do others think of their cities? visit these participating blogs from across the globe, and find out:

Portland (OR), USA - Menton, France - Monte Carlo, Monaco - Memphis (Tennessee), USA - Manila, Philippines - San Diego (CA), USA - Anderson (SC), USA - New York City (NY), USA - San Diego (CA), USA - Mexico City, Mexico - San Francisco (CA), USA - Mumbai (Maharashtra), India - Mainz, Germany - Weston (FL), USA - Minneapolis (MN), USA - Turin, Italy - Las Vegas (NV), USA - Hobart (Tasmania), Australia - Bicheno, Australia - Durban, South Africa - Joplin (MO), USA - Nashville (TN), USA - Stockholm, Sweden - Kyoto, Japan - Tokyo, Japan - Brussels, Belgium - Chicago (IL), USA - Montpellier, France - Seattle (WA), USA - Mazatlan, Mexico - Saint Paul (MN), USA - Sharon (CT), USA - Sesimbra, Portugal - Toulouse, France - Tuzla, Bosnia and Herzegovina - Susanville (CA), USA - Maple Ridge (BC), Canada - Saint Louis (MO), USA - Prague, Czech Republic - Helsinki, Finland - Pilisvörösvár, Hungary - Lisbon, Portugal - Mexico (DF), Mexico - Trujillo, Peru - Dunedin (FL), USA - Albuquerque (NM), USA - Port Angeles (WA), USA - Cottage Grove (MN), USA - Saint-Petersburg, Russian Federation - Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia - London, UK - Baziège, France - Jefferson City (MO), USA - Greenville (SC), USA - Selma (AL), USA - Mumbai, India - Naples (FL), USA - Norwich (Norfolk), UK - Silver Spring (MD), USA - Setúbal, Portugal - Stayton (OR), USA - Bellefonte (PA), USA - Sofia, Bulgaria - Arradon, France - Montego Bay, Jamaica - Athens, Greece - Austin (TX), USA - Singapore, Singapore - West Sacramento (CA), USA - Jackson (MS), USA - Wassenaar (ZH), Netherlands - Budapest, Hungary - Rotterdam, Netherlands - St Malo, France - Chandler (AZ), USA - Melbourne, Australia - Port Vila, Vanuatu - Cleveland (OH), USA - Nottingham, UK - Kansas City (MO), USA - The Hague, Netherlands - Crystal Lake (IL), USA - Wrocław, Poland - Chateaubriant, France - Cheltenham, UK - Moscow, Russia - Monrovia (CA), USA - Saigon, Vietnam - Toruń, Poland - Grenoble, France - Lisbon, Portugal - New Orleans (LA), USA - Sydney, Australia - Boston (MA), USA - American Fork (UT), USA - Boston (MA), USA - Montréal (QC), Canada - Wichita (KS), USA - Radonvilliers, France - Buenos Aires, Argentina - Christchurch, New Zealand - Rabaul, Papua New Guinea - Wailea (HI), USA - Aliso Viejo (CA), USA - St Francis, South Africa - Port Elizabeth, South Africa - Seattle (WA), USA - Pasadena (CA), USA - Vienna, Austria - Orlando (FL), USA - Torun, Poland - Delta (CO), USA - Santa Fe (NM), USA - Minneapolis (MN), USA - Haninge, Sweden - Paris, France - Stavanger, Norway - Niamey, Niger - Le Guilvinec, France - Bogor, Indonesia - Saarbrücken, Germany - Auckland, New Zealand - Wellington, New Zealand - Budapest, Hungary - Juneau (AK), USA - Bucaramanga (Santander), Colombia - Glasgow, Scotland - Chicago (IL), USA - Jakarta, Indonesia - Adelaide (SA), Australia - Sydney, Australia - Riga, Latvia - Subang Jaya (Selangor), Malaysia - Terrell (TX), USA - Terrell (TX), USA - Inverness (IL), USA