Old is Gold. Or is it?

- By Deepa Krishnan

On April 15 (Poila Baisakh, the Bengali New Year), a Bangladeshi writer I know wrote an article bemoaning the loss of traditional Bangla culture.

Children in Bangladesh are eating pizza and burgers, he agonised. They're losing interest in traditional Bengali food! They're listening to Westernised remixes of traditional Bangla songs! They're losing touch with rural Bangladesh, and even losing simple local knowledge (for example, how to walk through slippery soil or negotiate rickety wooden bridges).

As I read his article, it naturally struck me that we have pretty much the same thing happening in India.

I know only half the traditional Tamil pickle recipes that my mother knows. I do not know how to drape the beautiful traditional kanjeevaram, the 9-yard saree (although I've been promising myself that I will learn it!). I do not know the names of the months in the Hindu calendar, and I cannot read the traditional almanac to check for "auspicious" hours. I don't know how to draw water smoothly from a village well, or how to frugally channel the watering of a coconut grove. I have none of my father's intimate knowledge of astrology, or his deep understanding and appreciation of Kathakali. I am blind to the sowing and harvesting patterns of the paddy fields, and I can barely tell one spice from another in a plantation.

It seems to me that in just one generation, a whole world has been lost.

Watching the paddy harvest at Hampi. We had no clue it was harvest season when we went there.

When I consider my daughter's generation, the loss is even deeper. My daughter and niece are even less familiar than I am with festivals and rituals. They are city kids, who know nothing at all of village life. They will, in all probability, never wear a 9-yards kanjeevaram...and in time, the looms that produce these beautiful sarees will stop making them.

My first instinct, therefore, was to empathise with the Bangladeshi writer's sense of loss.

But then, I stopped to think.

Is this really loss? Or is it just a natural movement forward?

Do I really want us to be a stagnant people, staying the same always? So what if music and food preferences change over time? So what if our kids love rock music, and remix it into their own versions, part Indian, past Western? So what if we love Chinese cuisine, turning fried-rice into a uniquely Chindian offering?

In India we have had a glorious tradition of adopting and literally transforming all sorts of foodstuff. We did not have tomatoes, potatoes and green chillies until 500 years ago when the Portuguese brought it. But look at us now; these are an integral part of our cuisine!

How do I say thank you in Portuguese? :) :)

In my home, yes, we do not cook some of the traditional Tamil and Kerala dishes because I don't know how to. But we are experimenting with all sorts of other stuff - Gujarati achars, Punjabi masalas, Greek feta, Italian pastas, Mexican sauces, Chinese stir-frys - this is no loss!! More and more interesting spices are entering my kitchen, and soon these will be part of a glorious new cuisine. Far from being a loss, this is a fresh breeze wafting through my kitchen bringing flavours from all over the world into my life.

I believe people who have a problem with cultural changes are blinkered. Cultures that do not learn and adapt - they just wither and die. Those who observe, adopt, adapt and innovate are richer for it.

But then (sigh), what of the old ways and their undoubted beauty? Do I really want to forget our history and culture? It is a dilemma, isn't it?

At a dinner discussion some months ago, my daughter asked, "Amma, do you think it's important to study history? It's just a bunch of old stuff, right?"

And I answered her by saying, "I think it is important to document and preserve information about the old days and the old ways, otherwise we won't know who we are or where we came from."

The real reason why people fear cultural change is because they think it leads to identity loss. But what if we teach our children who they are, what their roots are? If we are able to connect children to their roots, then they can listen to any kind of music, eat any kind of food, wear any kind of clothes... but I believe they will still remain anchored to their real identity. They will, even while embracing change, not morph into rootless, culture-less, confused strangers.

Speaking for myself, my heart is here, anchored in Mumbai, amidst my family. Whether or not I learn to cook a 10-course feast, I know that this sophisticated subtle Brahmin vegetarian cuisine is part of my rich legacy. Whether or not I eventually learn to wear the 9-yard kanjeevaram, I know it is my people who created this thing of beauty many hundreds of years ago. So even as I fly around the world and experiment with other clothes, I feel the silken threads of the kanjeevaram anchoring me, calling to me, reminding me of my roots.

So yes, Old is Gold, because it tells who you really are. Armed with the old, it's easier to tackle the new!

My mother in a 9-yard South Indian kanjeevaram, me in a more "modern" 6-yards version, and my daughter in a "borrowed-from-North India" salwar-kameez. Our clothes reflect three generations of change already!

The Party

- by Deepa Krishnan

We threw a Saturday lunch party yesterday (well, maybe that's the wrong way to phrase it - the party sort of threw itself).

You see, my husband is changing jobs, and his team from the old company wanted to organise a farewell party. The venue was our house.

The gang showed up with an amazing number of beer bottles. A plastic tub from the bathroom was rescued, filled with ice and water, and served as the chiller. The guys assured me that adding salt to the water would speed up the cooling process. "Three minutes for ice-cold bottles", they boasted. So my somewhat flummoxed maid was summoned and asked to dump salt into the tub. She thought (so did I) that the boys were nuts, but apparently salt reduces the freezing point of ice, or some such thing. Anyway, I was having wine, so I didn't really care :)

We live in a small apartment that is absolutely not capable of holding 20 people - but hey, this is Bombay - where we all know how to survive the super-dense local trains. Naturally, all through the afternoon, as the beer levels progressively increased, people showed a lot of creativity in finding places to sit / sleep / slouch (and straddle!)

The star of the show was our new music system - my husband's pet project, into which a substantial portion of the family fortune has been sunk. Through the afternoon, I heard not one, but several technical discourses on how to make the most of our Bose (what is it with men and gadgets?).


The laptop was rigged up to the system (so were mobile phones), and we had a merry procession of DJ's, each trying to educate the audience on what constitutes good music.

We started with lavni - a provocative song called 'Piklya Paanacha' - which was completely lost on the non-Marathi part of the group, but which I loved. It led to discussions on how lavni shows now work in the interior parts of Kolhapur and other districts, how the age of Mumbai dance bars is now over, and how - if you are on the inside track - you can see dance shows in Pondicherry of all places! If you want to hear/see the lavni song and dance, the link is here - and if you want a translation of the superbly rustic lyrics - dripping with innuendo and come-hither references, just ask me!!

Moving on from lavni - the gang had people from all parts of India, so we moved on to a wide assortment of other stuff - the Tamil gang played some good old Ilayaraja hits and some 'modern' Kollywood stuff (loud catcalls, etc!). There were classic Hindi movie songs from O P Nayyar; "50-years of Golden Bollywood", nostalgic stuff from Bob Dylan and Santana, and an assortment of blues and jazz.


There were repeated calls for music from Dilli 6 from me - I wanted to listen to what I call the achar song :) For me this song has become the quintessential summer afternoon song, and the sight of the sunlight filtering through the curtains made me want to hear it.

Surprisingly, no one asked for or played the newer Bollywood "party" numbers, except for one aborted attempt at the popular 'Pretty Woman' song from that Shah Rukh Khan starrer. I was kinda surprised. If there is one type of music that everyone in Bombay understands (especially after several rounds of beers), it is Bollywood dance music - a sort of universal common denominator not only in Bombay but across the country.

I don't have anything against the feel-good numbers that Bollywood produces - many are fantastic infectious songs that set your foot tapping. But I think I enjoyed our somewhat divergent musical afternoon more, simply because of all the inflections and variations we had. Tamil, Marathi, Hindi, English, old, new, modern, traditional and folk music - the songs were chosen by different people from different parts of the country, with different kinds of upbringing. There was a lot of laughter and shouting and booing, but it was good-natured fun, and every song was given its due chance to impress.

Later that night I thought about the party and reflected with a smile that maybe this sort of get together is why I like Bombay. The mix of people and all the different regional flavours is what makes this city a cosmopolitan joy to live in. The more we live side by side, the more we learn to listen to each other, the richer we become. I wish some of the intolerant idiots who are ruining the city with ther bigotry would learn this simple lesson.

Mumbai Magic is on Condé Nast - again!

This month Condé Nast Traveller voted Mumbai, Chicago and Buenos Aires as top buzz-worthy destinations. And Mumbai Magic is the only tour company listed in the article, yayy!




We're Off To Mumbai, Chicago, and Buenos Aires
by Eimear Lynch | Published April 2010
Our top picks for the biggest-value buzz-worthy destinations worldwide. Get 'em while they're hot.

Taking the local train

- By Aishwarya Pramod

This year I started travelling by local train for the first time.

Throughout my school days, I'd been a princess going back and forth everyday by car, and this continued for the first few days of college as well. (In my defence, I never asked for the car. My parents insisted I be driven to college and back, honest!).

But then I felt the need to travel by local train, simply because I needed to have an option in case I could not go by car.

So I asked a classmate, who I knew lived close to where I lived, and she agreed to come with me to the station (V.T.) and show me which trains I could get on, and where to get off.

VT Station, from where my journey back home after college begins

View of station as we approach from my college

Subway entrance to get to VT Station

The train journey was very interesting the first time. In the compartment (Second Class Ladies) there were all sorts - fisherwomen chatting loudly, squatting at the entrance; college students, listening to music on earphones, burka-clad ladies and schoolgirls wearing headscarves.

Vendors selling chips, samosas, bhel puri and others selling clips, stickers, bangles, earrings got on. My friend and I looked at some earrings together.

A blind man got on, singing a devotional song and walked through the compartment. A woman followed him, holding a tin where people deposited coins.

It wasn't very crowded, and only a few people were standing in the compartment. Most of the others had places to sit, though in most cases 4 women were squeezed into a seat meant for 3.

The ones standing asked, "Kahaan utarna hai?" to the ones sitting. Where will you get off the train? The sitting ones told them where they would get off, and thus those standing reserved places for themselves after the ones sitting got off.

At Wadala Road, the station before mine (and hers), we got up and went to the door. At the next station we jumped off, and on the platform pulled free of a pocket of ladies trying to board the same train we had got off from.

It was time to walk home. My friend took the bus as she lived a little distance away. I was feeling confident about the train journey and looked forward to it the next day.

But immediately the next day, that girl didn't come to college. I was left to find my train on my own. I got onto the wrong train, and at Byculla station, I asked the lady next to me "Agla station GTB hai na?" (The next station is GTB, yes?)

She said, "Arre, yeh gaadi GTB nahi jaati. Utar jao, tumko waapas jaana hoga." (No, this train doesn't go to GTB; you better get off this train and go back)

I didn't know how to go back and what to do after that, but I didn't want to ask (I didn't want to look ignorant :P ... stupid, I know!). So I got off at the next station and took a taxi home, feeling pathetic.

But that was a long time ago. Now I'm more familiar with the trains. I can catch trains both on the Central line and the Harbour line, because my house is located near 2 stations - GTB Nagar and Sion.

Sometimes while travelling with friends, we take the General Compartment where both men and women are allowed to travel. We usually take First Class... I took the General Second Class Compartment once and I don't want to do it again (This involves an embarassing incident where I accidentally groped a man's chest - I was standing near the seat and I thought it was my bag but I turned around to find a very affronted-looking Sardarji. I mumbled a sorry and ran for the door. This only happened cos the Second Class Compartment was more crowded, and because I was talking to a friend and didn't concentrate on what I was doing!!).

First Class Compartment. Further down is Second Class, where you can see people hanging out of the door.

Many days when I've had to stay back late in college either because of lectures or other work, I prefer to take the train home, rather than asking the driver to wait. So that happens around two or three days a week. Now I also have a rail pass for the Central line - First Class.

I can't make any claims to be a veteran/seasoned commuter but after a year of college, I'm no newbie either!

Pigging out at Elco Arcade

- by Deepa Krishnan

I'm quite certain there are two women for every man you see on Hill Road. It's all the shopping, you see? Makes for a skewed gender ratio!

Hundreds of big and small stores, selling clothing, bags, footwear, purses, hair accessories... it's absolute paradise for female shopaholics.
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But for me, what makes this chaotic experience extra-special is this: the restaurant at at Elco Arcade!

Home of the special pani puri, Elco is a destination unto itself, a fast-food Mecca, so to speak.

Space is at a premium, given the almost permanent crowds. So the management cleverly uses little red stools. Whether you're out with the whole family, or just with a friend, the stools lend themselves to amazingly creative configurations, doubling up as both tables and chairs. And if you're dating someone, the stools allow you to cozy up. Who wants a big table in between?

One of my little pleasures at Elco is sharing food. When you order something, you can say "Five spoons, please!" - and the waiters understand perfectly. When the item is served, you plonk it on a common stool, share it with friends, and when you've polished it off, you then order the next interesting thing. This sort of sequential ordering and eating works because the waiters are lightning fast, everything is served ultra-quick, and there is hardly any thumb-twiddling. Here are three happy shoppers digging into a shared sev-puri.

But sev-puri is not Elco's trademark dish. It is the pani puri that catapulted Elco from a small street-side stall into a thriving restaurant. There are 2 pani-puri counters, and as the guy at your counter works his magic, your entire system floods with anticipation. Little crisp puris with their spicy-tangy-sweet fillings...aah...you can barely wait. In fact, look at the careful concentration on the girl's face in the photo below :)

While the pani-puris are really good, my favourite at Elco is their pav bhaji. This is the only place in the city that I know which serves pav bhaji along with dahi-vada and a gulab jamun. I remember how surprised and pleased I was the very first time I got it! It was an unexpected bonus, and one that made perfect sense to me. The dahi-vada is cooling on the palate after the spicy pav bhaji, and the gulab jamun rounds off the meal delightfully.

This is my cousin Sheela with the cheese pav bhaji that she and I shared. She was visiting from Malaysia, and I decided she should experience the delights of Elco. The entire plate was sinful, yes, but worth every calorie. When you come to Elco you really need to check in your diet at the door.

This Sunday I went back to Elco. Sheela's brother Juggi was visiting from the US, and so five of us piled into our Innova and went to Elco. It was quite warm outside, so we were ushered upstairs - where to my surprise, there was a very modern-looking, air-conditioned space. Not surprisingly, here too, there were more women than men.

We ordered five different dishes, and we shared it between us. I managed to click photos of my bhelpuri and my mom's dahi-puri before they vanished in an all-out attack by five spoons.

The bhel was just the way I like it - with little slices of green mango to add that extra tang.


My mom loved the dahi-puri, but Aishwarya didn't. She thought the dahi was too sweet.

We polished off the whole affair with mango-kulfi (yes! it's that time of the year! the Alfonsos have started to arrive!) and falooda, before heading off to Carter Road to watch a street play (more of that later perhaps).

The menu at Elco has many more interesting things that I have not yet tasted. Makai Pattice, Basket Chaat, Double Chaska (whatever that is!), Tava Aloo Chaat...take a look.

I'd like to try all of them at some point. I guess I'll simply *have* to go shopping more often, then, won't I? he he.

Disappearing Act

- by Aishwarya Pramod

Up until I was 5 years old, I spent most of my time at my grandparents' place. My mom was a working woman and during the day time my grandmother and grandfather looked after me.

Their house was on the ground floor of a set of apartments, in a small lane behind Roopam cinema (now Cinemax Sion). One of my earliest memories is of a tree, growing near the gate of my grandparents’ building. The strange little flowers on that tree spread a red carpet on the ground. And in and around that tree, there were tons of sparrows. Sparrows hopping around (when moving on the ground, they prefer to hop instead of walk), sparrows scolding angrily, sparrows flitting busily about the whole building.

When I was almost 6, we went to live in Chennai. When I came back to Mumbai seven years later, I saw that the tree was gone and only a few sparrows were in sight.

I wondered where they all had gone. I wondered if it was only from our building that they disappeared, or from all of Mumbai?

The answer, I found out from newspapers, is that the little birds have dropped in population drastically - more than 50 percent- since the time I was last here.

Sparrows are tough city birds, but in Mumbai, they've been subjected to an unholy combination of challenges that has broken their hardy backs.

For one, they have fewer places to nest now. The old, traditional houses had lots of hidey holes and protected crevices for sparrows to make their nests. Box style flats have fewer of these spaces.

Traditional roofed housing in Bandra -
But these old enclaves are disappearing fast. In the background you can see new modern style concrete housing.

A fisherman's old-style home in Worli Fishing Village.
This sort of house has lots of nooks and crannies where sparrows love to build their nests.

Another surprising reason is the introduction of unleaded petrol. When unleaded petrol combusts, it releases compounds that kill insects, which are an important food source for baby sparrows.

Radiation from mobile towers also affects the reproductive and nervous systems of sparrows. Their babies have high mortality rates and many of them are born with serious deformities.

Pigeons, crows and other bigger birds are serious competition.

City folks don't dry grain out in the open as much as they used to, so sparrows can't steal grain from here (another important food source gone).

Surely, the sparrow is disappearing from the city. This is a bird that has characterized not only my childhood, but that of many others in Mumbai. Perhaps the disappearance of the sparrow indicates the passing of an old way of life in Mumbai. Or maybe Mumbai was always rapidly changing, and I just didn't notice it when I was 5 years old.

Lamps for Sale!! New and Old!! Lamps for Sale!!

- by Deepa Krishnan
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I know I have an overactive imagination, but I swear to you, some shops in Chor Bazaar look like they are straight out of The Arabian Nights.

Pottering among the shelves, you feel you might chance upon Alladin's fabled lamp, or some other magical object to transport you in time and space to some distant Caliphate.
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There are all sorts of combinations of brass and glass, there's a clinking and tinkling, and everywhere, there is a thin layer of dust that reminds you this is a flea market, not an upscale boutique. But it all adds to the experience, the rickety chairs you sit on, the way you have to hunt for treasures...
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We were shopping for antique looking light fixtures. My friend had bought a traditional heritage house in Penang and was looking to refurbish it. A brass chandelier we saw hanging from the ceiling seemed just the right thing. We had them take it down from the ceiling for closer inspection.

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Then we tried different types of glass holders, to see what designs we liked. We had just one night - she was flying out the next morning, so we had to be patient while stocks were checked to ensure we had enough numbers of glass holders. The price was a fantastic bargain at Rs 15,000 for the chandelier, a set of 17 glass holders (2 spare ones), and all fittings.
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The deal was clinched; and we waited some more while the little screws were fixed, the chandelier polished and scrubbed. The more I looked at it, the more gorgeous it seemed. Even in that very ordinary setting, I could see that when this thing was finally transported and installed in a heritage home, it would look amazing. What is it about burnished brass that's so alluring?

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There were lots of other things in the shop, some were art deco, some ornate and colourful,...depending on your taste and the kind of decor that works for your house, you could end up buying a lot of things here. I loved the art deco, actually. Some of it was funky and fantastic. But even the colourful glass stuff was full of character and would add interesting drama to a boring living room.

It was late, almost 8:30 p.m. by the time we left the shop. I was starving. When we walked out to the car, we found this street-side treasure: Sweet potato!!

Roasted on a coal sigdi, and served with a dash of salt and chaat masala...sigh...what a treat. Have you tasted this before? The potato skin was darkened to black over the coal fire, but inside the flesh was white and steaming hot. We clambered gratefully into the car, and headed back home tucking into our little treat. I'm totally convinced now- every shopping trip ought to end with great street food!!

The dabbawala and other Mumbai stories

- By Deepa Krishnan

"Why haven't you written about the dabbawalas?", someone asked me recently. "They're such a Mumbai icon!"

Well, if you really want to know, I haven't written about the dabbawalas simply because they've become such a well-worn cliche. I am so irritated by condescending articles that gush "Oh, they're uneducated but they're still a six sigma operation!!".

As if only people with university degrees can run anything of high quality!

I'm quite certain the istriwala who has been coming to our house every week for the last 20 years runs a six sigma operation. He rarely, very rarely, makes mistakes. The guy who delivers our groceries (he comes home every alternate day and takes orders) rarely makes mistakes either. The newspaper delivery is never wrong, nor the milk delivery. The flower-woman delivers the right fresh flowers for daily prayer (different types of flowers for different houses, different lengths, and special flowers for special days). There's a fruit seller who brings bananas to my parents home every other day, and a vegetable seller who brings palak.

Istriwala at work, 7:00 a.m., near Indian Gymkhana, Matunga

Paperwala doing his rounds, near SIES School

All of these services are run by people with no literacy; they each service large numbers of people, and they all work quite well, thank you. Why? Maybe it's history. We have had, for many hundreds of years, tradesmen and artisans and tailors and goldsmiths, all providing custom services to not just nawabs and maharajahs, but also to a large section of middle and upper middle class consumers.

People were born into these specific trades - if your father was a goldsmith, so would you be. Fathers passed on to their sons, not only the necessary skills of the trade, but also their clientele. "Yeh hamara ladka hai", said our istriwala to me some months ago. This is my son. It was a business introduction, a way of ensuring the son's face was imprinted on me, so that when he passed on, the son could take over the business.

The sons of tradesmen all start by following their parents to shops or on their rounds, familiarising themselves not only with the trade, but also the customers. Our family goldsmith, for instance, knows three generations of our family, and we know three generations of theirs. As each generation passes on, the younger ones continue the relationship, offering personalised and trusted services.

But it's not just artisans and tradesmen - you can see custom-services even in the daily bazaars. Come pickling season, shopkeepers set up custom mango slicing operations. "Don't cut it so fine, bhaiyya", you can say to them. "I'd like it more chunky." Buying a pineapple? They'll slice it into nice thin circles so you don't have to bother. How about a pomegranate? Ah, no problem, they'll peel it for you and give you bright red kernels in small pouches. Fresh corn? They'll cut the kernels from the cob and custom-pack it for you. If you're a regular customer, they'll remember what you like and how you like it.

Mango seller, Bhuleshwar. You can taste before buying; and have it cut to your specifications.

Pomegranates at Matunga Market, free peeling service

As you can see, we are quite obviously, a people who understand personalised and high quality service extremely well. In fact, I think Indian consumers are probably the most demanding in the world. We want - no, we insist - on superior service, tailored to our needs, at little or no cost. This of course, is a daunting prospect for anyone supplying anything to the Indian market. But sellers who can understand this mindset and who can tailor their products and services to it, are the ones who will succeed and thrive.

The dabbawallas have, in fact, done exactly that. They provide a service that is designed around their customer's needs, at a price that makes sense. This doesn't make the dabbawalas any less iconic or interesting - but it does set them into a larger context, the context of a city that offers other similar services at really low costs.

Here are the simple economics of the dabbawala story:

Number of dabbawalas: 5,000

Number of dabbas they deliver every day: 200,000

Charges per month: Rs 250-300 per dabba

What you get for 10 rupees a day: Two-way delivery of food (in the morning, hot food is transported from home to office, and in the afternoon the empty dabba is brought back)

Does it make sense?: Yes it does. A thali meal at a restaurant costs at least Rs 35; and the nicer ones cost Rs 100 - Rs 200. So even with the dabbawala's delivery charges, you end up spending much, much less every month if you bring food from home. And you don't get upset tummies. And all your little food taboos are intact - you can eat garlic-free meals, if your religion forbids garlic. Or sugar-free meals, if you're diabetic. Unlike a courier service, you get the same dabbawala every day, a face-to-face personalised service integrated into your daily routine. Before the era of cell phones, dabbawalas passed on messages as well ("Come home early, your aunt from Valsad is here!"). Even today, because it is a familiar trusted daily service, the dabbawala will sometimes deliver cell phones or pens or things that someone has forgotten at home.

And thus the dabbawala's proposition works; it is priced right for the market, but more importantly, it satisfies the customer's requirement for a customised, personalised meal that meets personal, medical, religious and social requirements. It therefore delivers exactly the kind of value that Indian customers want and appreciate. If there is a magic formula for succeeding in the Indian market, surely this is it.

Mumbai on their mind

The three of us got featured on Harmony Magazine (you know, the one Tina Ambani owns) recently. Mom and I enjoyed the photo-shoot at my home. Aishwarya co-operated, but barely :) The article is reproduced below, I thought it was well written.


Mumbai on their mind
A family blog that brings together the past, present and the future

The family that 'blogs' together stays together. You are tempted to rewrite the old proverb when you meet 70 year-old Janaki Krishnan; her daughter, Deepa, 40; and granddaughter Aishwarya, 16. The three share a group blog: www.mumbai-magic.blogspot.com.

Though it was Deepa who came up with the idea in 2006, Aishwarya and Janaki started contributing a year later. Janaki, a retired teacher, was inspired to write actively when her first article on Mumbai's Koliwada market was published in HT Café, the daily supplement of Hindustan Times.

The blog, in essence, is a paean to Mumbai, featuring little-known streets and monuments: the obscure Jewish synagogue in Masjid Bunder; the vegetable market in Vashi; a tiny attar (perfume) shop in Crawford Market; the knife sellers in Zaveri Bazaar. Many posts related to places are written by Deepa, who organises city tours through her firm Mumbai Magic Tours. Janaki's writings are steeped in nostalgia and interesting details of everyday life: the 'season' of making pickles; remembering her mother on Mothers' Day; oil baths of yore; and finding the perfect banana to match her family's diverse taste. And Aishwarya, who believes her grandmother is her "emergency number", writes about everything from travelling in local trains to taking riding lessons and monsoon in Mumbai. All three often discuss possible subjects for the blog and have inspired more members in their family to write. "My uncle wrote a funny piece about people falling asleep in Mumbai trains and my grand-uncle wrote about a rare flower that bloomed in a terrace garden near his house," says Aishwarya.

Harmony magazine, Nov 09

At the Post Office

- by Deepa Krishnan
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I have not been to the Post Office in the last 12 years. But last week, I went with mom and dad . They had invested a little money a while ago, in some postal savings scheme, and my signature was needed in order to redeem it.

My first impression of the interior.

At first I thought nothing had changed at the Post Office - but then I realised the red colour was new. The place was brighter than I remembered. And there were now chairs that you could sit on, while you waited for the files to move. That's Dad, seated, waiting for his cheque.

Mom in the rust colour saree. She's helping the lady in green fill a form in English.

A Tamil-speaking lady in green was having trouble with forms. Mom as usual, volunteered to help. I wandered off with the camera, clicking photos. The first thing I noticed was this couple.

They were at the Monthly Income Scheme counter.

This is a scheme where you deposit a certain amount, and then you withdraw on a monthly basis. It is popular with retired people - perhaps there was a family elder on whose behalf they were withdrawing.

I sneaked a peek at the man behind another counter. I wondered what his job was. I found out easily enough. His job was to write things in big fat ledgers.

The babu and his numbered ledgers

It seemed to me like the dullest job in the world, scribbling little numbers on page after page, book after book. And yet, this is a sought-after job, bringing with it a certain social standing. A man with a steady "go-ment job" has no trouble finding a bride.

I saw the usual board, asking people not to bribe officials.

A little further away was the mail dropbox. If memory serves me right, the red slot below is where I used to drop letters to my German pen-pal. I wonder if anyone has-penpals these days!

The green is for inside the country, and the red is for international.

I wandered outside the post office gate, and found a little blue office. The board on the office said, "Harris Michael Koli, Investment Consultant. Please phone on mobile before comming" (His spelling, not mine!).

Exterior of Sion Post Office.

On the building you can see the new logo of the Indian Post Office, launched in 2008. It is meant to represent a new dynamic and modern postal system, in tune with the twenty first century. Frankly, in a country this size, that is not an easy achievement. I looked up the India Post website and found that we have a staggering 155,035 post offices in the country, of which 90% are in rural areas.

By the way, I found some other interesting tidbits as well:

• The average distance you have to walk anywhere in India, to find the nearest Post Office is 2.59 kms.
• In Maharashtra, a typical rural post office serves 5,127 people and an urban post office 35,324 people
• Of the 155,035 post offices, 2,500 have completed what the India Post calls "Modernisation (Improving Ergonomics)". I wonder what they did as part of this exercise!
• An impressive 10,000 post offices have been computerised (my post office is one of them, so there are fewer babus writing in files in Sion, he he.)
  
• There are 30,000 female employees of India Post. This is 10% of the total staff.
  

Another interesting thing about the Indian Post is that it provides employment for more than just it's staff. Like Michael Harris Koli above, or this gentleman with the moustache below.

Mr. Moustache - the grand old man outside Post Office!

Mr. Moustache has been a fixture outside the Sion Post Office for the last 20 years. What does he do? He is a typist, and he types out legal agreements on stamped paper. It has nothing to do with India Post, this is just a very good place to set up shop.

The Parcel Service Guy

Next to Mr. Moustache is another counter - this is a Registered Parcel service. You tell the man the address, and give him your parcel. He wraps it in the right sized envelope or packet, seals the package with wax, and fills in the post office Registered Parcel form. All you have to do is take it inside the Post Office and send it off. It's a handy service if you can't read or write, or don't have the right packing material at home.

When I wandered back inside, I found that our cheque was ready. Dad was pleased as punch. We didn't have to wait too long, or fill lengthy forms. The records were computerised, it was easy to check the file and see what was due. It was all very pleasant. And while it isn't as fast or easy as say, a private sector bank, I suppose things *have* changed, after all, at the Post Office.

(Article quoted on CNN Go Jan 7 http://www.cnngo.com/mumbai/none/post-about-mumbai-post-office-006787)