Mumbai Pharmacies

As a foreigner I find medicines are very cheap in India.  Locally produced versions of just about anything you can think of are freely available and I know lots of people who stock up on medicines to take back to family members, particularly people from the USA.

However, medicines must have very narrow profit margins as pharmacies also sell a wide range of other products.  Some of them make sense, blood pressure monitors, thermometers and food supplements.  Toiletries are another line so if you need toothpaste, soap or shampoo your local pharmacy is  a good place to go looking for it.  Other things stretch the imagination, biscuits, chocolate, potato crisps but they fill a space on the shelves and they must sell or they wouldn't be there.  The most puzzling is dog food.

Every pharmacy I've visited apart from those inside  hospitals has a shelf of dog and cat food.  I have no idea why but the local dogs seem happy about it.

A Tale of Two Settees

It was the best of times, it was the worst of times.  Well, not really but it was absolutely time to get rid of the awful brown and saggy sofa and replace it with something, anything, else.

We chose a pair of red sofas from Pepperfry – online marketplace for furniture, which were slated for delivery on Thursday evening.Of course they arrived at 3, when we were still at work. A friend headed up to the flat to let them in while we were tied up with different meetings.  We fortunately live close to our workplace.

Of course security weren’t keen on letting them in but we got that sorted, then, of course, one of the sofas was too big for the lift. So the men carried up 29 floors!

And of course, the big sofa, the one that was too big for the lift, the one that was carried up 29 floors, was the wrong colour. Of course it was.

It was beige, it was big and beige and sitting outside the flat.

Pepperfry told us they had a no returns policy, not true, it got returned but only after much wrangling. They offered compensation of 5000 INR – 58 GBPs – to keep the big beige mistake, we laughed. They told us they didn’t have any red ones in stock, they did, we could see them on their website. They told us it was hard to check the colour of products in their warehouse, it was written on the outside.

The beige mistake sofa fitted in the lift after all and went on its way.

They told us they’d deliver the sofa in the right colour on Friday. It arrived on Saturday, of course it bloody did.

WIndow Cleaner

It's been a while since I posted a picture looking down from our flat in the sky.  There's a window cleaner in this picture.

The windows are cleaned twice a year, around now and then again after Monsoon.  One person does them all, around 3.5 thousand, and all hanging from a rope.  Can you see him?

Mango Season 2016

It's mango season, specifically Alphonso mango season.  The flat is full of their seductive and decadent scent and I know they're not going to last long.

I'd had a tantalising few chunks of Alphonso in a fruit salad during my recent holiday to Goa and that seems to have kickstarted my mania for mangoes.  The price starts high and drops as the supply increases and typically I'd wait until the price had dropped a bit but I threw sense to the wind in favour of scent and don't regret it a bit.

I like to squeeze their flesh until it's soft then suck it out through the skin, the man likes his neatly sectioned on a plate but whatever way you want to eat them, the Alphonso is the richest, the most perfumed the most delicious fruit I've ever experienced.

It won't be the last box this season.

New Moon at Holi

The light of a nearly full moon reflecting off the sea woke me this morning at 5:30.

 

There was not a human sound to be heard.  It felt as though I

was the only person seeing it.

The year in which someone got his name nearly right

The Man's name is "Stephen".  He's quite specific about that, not Steve, or Stevie or Stevo, it's "Stephen".  I support that, you should be called your name of choice and not have to put up with other peoples' interpretation or preferences of it.

He likes his spelling to be right too, it's with a "ph" not a "v".  So, when he books anything he always says "Stephen with a ph" and recently he got just that.

Bloody brilliant!

This year ... was the year of the Cigar Box Guitar(s)

The Man's a pianist and he likes to play the Blues.  This year he decided he would like to play the Blues even more on a guitar made from a cigar box.   So he got one, then another one and somehow, he ended the year with four of them.

The one in front is not like the others, it's made from a wine box and is, apparently, the bass guitar.

So now when we travel, so does one of the guitars.  The best place to play them, so I've been told, is barefoot on a porch with something nice to sip.   He's happy, I'm happy and so long as he doesn't plug in the little travel amp, so are the neighbours.

Seeing sights

There's a lot to see in Mumbai and here's a picture of someone doing their best to see a lot of it.

Faces on Oriental Buildings

I was taking a wander around the Fort area of Mumbai, one of my favourite spots for Gothic architecture.  I stopped off to say "hello" to the Flora Fountain.

Nearby, sits the impressive Oriental Buildings, originally a school and fully armed with spires, intricate carved borders and arched windows,

It has three carvings of Dead White Men which I zoomed in on to get a closer look.

The centre one looks Shakespearean but I have no idea, and can't find out, who the other two are.  Any ideas out there?

Camera experiment

I'm spending Diwali on a beach, relaxing and enjoying the break.  I still wake ridiculously early, 5am is the norm.  I decided to spend some of this time experimenting with slow shutter release and low light.  This is what I ended up with:

I'm quite pleased with the effect.

Beach Party Animals

Indian beaches are working beaches.

You'll find fisherfolk landing catches, cows grazing or just wandering and the local dogs marking out their territory. On the more tourist developed beaches you'll find hawker selling bedsheets, bangles and clothes.  Almost everywhere you'll find food and drinks on offer.

it's less likely that you'll find horses, but my beach of choice for Diwali has seven of them that happily mingle with the tourists and make the effort to appear at sunset for photo opportunities.

Cow Donation Box

At my local pharmacy this wonderful thing has appeared.  It's a cow and calf in a perspex box.  The cow is strewn with Gods and Sages and sporting a delightful earring and the best eyelashes I've ever seen.

I pushed aside the pouch of prunes and the jar of energy supplement, to add a few notes by way of a modeling fee.  I'm not entirely sure what I've donated to, cow care I think.  I couldn't read the script and was too bedazzled by the bovine beauty to think about photographing the words for later translation.

It's the prettiest cash cow I've ever seen.

On Three Wheeled Mobile Temples and Colourful Feet

On a quiet side street I heard music, chanting and tinkling bells and caught the aroma of incense.  Nothing unusual in India, but this time it was coming from a mobile, motorised shrine.  I hadn't been up close and personal to one before, it was delightful.

I dropped a few rupees in by way of thanks for a cheering sight, sound and smell.

It was only after looking at the picture closely, that I fully realised how striking the sari on the woman was.  I've finally become accustomed to Indian colours as evidenced by my feet:

They've got a lot brighter since I moved to Mumbai.

Return to the stamping ground

I was horrified to realise it was more than a year since I updated this blog.  I've not been out and about taking pictures as often as before for a variety of reasons but this weekend I charged up the camera and headed down to Colaba.

It took a bit of time to get back into the swing of things but, I'm glad to report, Mumbai is still as photogenic as ever.

Colaba Causway, home to stalls selling all kinds of touristic and fashion items.  I seldom buy but there are very few times I wander through here without seeing something I want to photograph.  In this case; wooden fabric stamps.

Lion Gate Mumbai

I wandered up Kala Ghoda with the express intention of taking a couple of pictures of Lion Gate, the entry to the Naval Dockyard but was shooed away by guards who, quite rightly, pointed to the giant "No Photography" sign on the wall.

A bit dejected, I carried on walking and noticed for the first time a brilliant mural on the external wall of the dockyard.  I'm not sure whether the no photography rule applies to further away from the gate but who can stop themselves taking a picture when someone pushing colour co-ordinated laundry passes a painting?

Thank you Laundry Guy for making what would otherwise be a boring picture much more interesting.

A Treat?

Currently appearing on the back of Mumbai buses.

 Hiranandani hospital has an odd idea of what a "treat" is.

Kolkata Quickie

I'm squeezing in one last holiday before work starts again and am in Kolkata visiting friends, eating and taking pictures.

I'm working on trying to take pictures of people from the front, I am reticent doing this as I've mentioned before.

I tend to bumble around new places with the odd google search or tourist map to help me on my way but this time I signed up for a guided tour with Calcutta Photo Tours and can't recommend the experience highly enough.

I was guided around markets, places of worship and residential areas by Manjit, an exceptional story teller and gifted photographer and had an absolutely fantastic time. 

I learned so much about the city and enjoyed the experience so much that I've already decided to do another tour when I come back in December. I went on the Culture Kaleidoscope tour, next time I'll be mooching around markets

Vada Pav

I'm Scottish so partial to potatoes, fried foods and anything between white bread.  I am unable to understand why the Vada Pav has not ventured into Scotland, it would become the national dish in no time at all.

As a menu might describe it; "A fluffy potato patty enrobed in crunchy batter nestling in a soft bun generously slathered with chutney". Best eaten immediately and often.

Heaven.

Waiting zones

Mumbai is a crazy city and I love it.  I like the bustle and hustle and the noise and the smells, well almost all the smells.  I've got very comfortable weaving my way through the people and traffic and enjoying watching and joining in with the masses of people getting on with their lives. 

Recently my eye has been drawn away from the action the business and the activities to the quiet waiting that happens everywhere.  People, entirely comfortable in their spaces just waiting.  I do a lot of waiting too, just standing and watching and waiting to see what happens.  Here are two fellow waiters I watched recently:

Well, it's Mumbai, if  you wait long enough something's going to happen.

The Pantry and a personal gripe.

Pomegranates are delicious and this season has been the best I remember.  On a visit to The Pantry off Kala Ghoda, in a little lane just to the side of Fab India I found the best pomegranate drink ever.  Pomegranate and sweet lime.

The Pantry is a lovely little place, all pastel colours and teashop retro chic decorated with prettily painted kitchen utensils and other ephemera.

Big windows and white tiled walls create a lot of light and the open kitchen and glass cases full of bakery goods make for a relaxing space.

Food is served on rather stylish teal boards and the menu offers a good range of pies, sandwiches, salads and soups.  Local produce is favoured and there's free wi-fi.

The coffee is good too, very good.

Now to my personal gripe.  The Pantry has signed up to the social media initiative Treetins which encourages strangers to share tables and build relationships.  They have the cute little flags on the table which are popping up in restaurants all over Mumbai. They also have a regularly changing menu and specials.

They also have free wi-fi and throughout the restaurant people were taking advantage of it.

Now I get that it's useful, it helps people keep in touch, it can pass a lonely lunch or snack as well as a newspaper can.  I wasn't alone I was with the man and a very close friend.  I ordered soup, it came first, that's fine,  as a starter it should.  I tried conversation, questions, comments, suggestions, I got only vague grunts in response.  I even offered to let them try my soup! Nothing!  The two of them sat pecking at their phones like demented pigeons.  Eventually, just before their mains arrived they happily turned their phones to me to show how they had updated their status and had conversations with people who were online to say they were at The Pantry.  I bloody KNEW that!  At least they had tagged me into their comments so I knew I hadn't eaten alone!

I should have got up and moved to another table that was waving it's little flag but all the people eating alone were also pecking away at their various pads and phones.

I've decided that I prefer places without wi-fi but I'll go back to The Pantry and beg my companions to stay off the bloody social media at least until the coffee comes.