Kiran Jonnalagadda’s Blog

The granite slab bench, the hallmark of minimalist Indian design. Made of leftover construction material, so durable as to last decades, and as comfortable as any flat bench could be.

vipul and appughar at Bademiya’s in South Bombay, in the late night edition of Monday’s LJ meet (more pictures).

Bademiya’s is a roadside sheek kabab joint that has greatly grown in fame and fortune over the years—and still remains a roadside joint. The lane is now adorned with tables occupying all available space.

Another family was at this table when I first saw it. We came back a few minutes later and saw them leaving, and I had Vipul and Appu take over (they were sitting down to order anyway).

A long time ago, they promised this flyover would be completed by December 15. I say again, “yeah, right!”

Here’s a lending library that doesn’t like customers who cheat by flipping through pages before borrowing.

So here is the foundation of a new temple. Someone’s abandoned a portrait by the parkside. In ten years, a temple will have grown around it, and then even God cannot get it removed.

This is a Rio Carbon MP3 player. It’s got a nice 5 GB microdrive inside that belongs in my camera. The Carbon has a poor UI, so I’m not going to miss it at all. But maybe it’ll still work with a 512 MB card.

The old man looks on as I take out the camera, frame my picture. He asks if this is for a newspaper. I say this is for my own practice. He looks for a few minutes as I attempt various compositions, then speaks up again.

“Did you hear about the earthquake? That happens here sometimes. The water comes up this high.”

Marine Drive, South Bombay, with Malabar Hill in the backdrop. Bombay’s coastline is made of several little bays. This one from Nariman Point to Malabar Hill is the second from the southern tip. Malabar Hill is the most expensive real estate in the country. Thanks to yazad for this information (I always thought Nariman Point held the record).

Variations of this picture without that car blocking the view were lost to camera shake. I was hurrying to the LJ meet, the light was failing, and I didn’t notice the low shutter speed. More pictures later.

Spotted in Bombay this morning. Will the vehicle melt down if it doesn’t get to its destination on time? That should be an interesting sight.

I’m in Bangalore now. Rephotographed off my screen, and hence the fading in the corners.

Spikes by the doorway. These people are really serious about keeping out homeless people.

It isn’t yet the season for leaves to fall, but fall they will anyway. Found these on the bathroom window this morning. I think they’re held in place by cobweb strands. Shot holding the camera overhead, without the viewfinder.

Two posts by Zainab Bawa on the lives of hawkers in South Bombay: at Nariman Point and at Victoria Terminus.

Sitting by Nariman Point, Shah Rukh, the little tea and coffee selling boy comes over to me. I have been wanting to talk to him for a long time now, trying to convince him to tell me about himself. He is a clever boy. He knows that he can sell me tea and coffee and along with it the promise that some day he will talk. He says, “Today, today we will talk.” He promises me that after one more round of sale, he will come and talk to me. I wait, like I always do!

A while later, I notice that Shah Rukh is being dragged by the BMC men. Two of them are holding him by the collar. One of them has taken control of his only asset – his thermos and some of the maal inside. He is pleading them to leave him. They are firm. ‘No doing business here,’ they tell him. They treat him like a kid. He goes on pleading. I follow the men. Finally, one of them puts Shah Rukh’s thermos into the grey surveillance van and locks the door from the outside. Shah Rukh is telling them to let him go this time. But they are not interested in his pleas.

Zainab’s words evoke an empathy I am unable to articulate. I hope someday to be able to take pictures worthy of accompanying words as these. I haven’t had a single good shot since the one of the boys staring at the posters two weeks ago.

I watched Mira Nair’s Salaam Bombay last week and it had the same effect as Zainab’s words. The movie was made in 1988. Sixteen years ago. I couldn’t help wondering what happened to the cast in the years since. What have they done with their lives? IMDB reports that the boy in the leading role now repairs auto-rickshaws in Bangalore. How did they trace that? What about the rest?

The last hotel I was in had a television, so I sat down with it on weekend and saw an IBM ad featuring two guys calling each other from around the world and saying “change of plans” every second sentence. Humbug, I thought. Nobody has travel plans that fickle.

Now I feel like I have.

I was supposed to be coordinating a locative media workshop with Shekhar Krishnan at Srishti, but that plan is cancelled. We’re having a week-long meeting in Bombay instead, trying to figure out how to get maps of Bombay online, accessible to the general public. If you are in Bombay and interested, you’re welcome to join us. The tentative dates are 10-14th January, location undecided.

So I’m leaving Pune this weekend instead of next, and returning to spend three weeks between Bombay and Pune in January. The next place on my itinerary was Hyderabad. I should have been leaving for Hyderabad tonight, but I don’t have a ticket. The trains are all full for the next week, even in first class. Buses too. I’ve never had a problem with getting a bus before. Now they’re all full too. Spent much time last evening trying.

So I figured I’d just go back straight to Bangalore and visit Hyderabad some other time… but I can’t get a ticket to Bangalore either. Air Deccan’s running full. The other airlines are ruled out: my time is not worth that much.

As it stands now, the good folks in cyberabad have cancelled their LJ meet plans twice, I have a ticket to Bangalore for Tuesday, and I’m in Bombay on Monday and largely unoccupied. Anyone from mumbai wants to meet?

This could have been an advertisement for a new game or a TV serial,
but no, it has to be a traffic sign. Whoever that philosopher is, what
was he thinking? Was he expecting traffic to slow down to read his
poetry? In case you can’t read the text, it says “he touches go only to
die at 19.”

Just replace ‘A’ with ‘E’, and oh dear, what a name! How does he deal
with misspellings?

“Pls” and “ur” are no longer SMS-speak. They are now regular Indian
English words. Please update your dictionaries.

What else can you say when an educational institute with a countrywide
reputation puts up signs like these?

Some names just don’t carry over well.

So this chap arrives at the signal driving a bulldozer. Not a regular bulldozer, mind you, but one with a crane attached. The folding arm with hook and cable sort of crane. Because the streets are infested with low hanging electric wires, he can’t drive with the crane arm over him. It’s folded up and extends a car’s length in front.

So now our man drives up to the signal and—in keeping with the spirit of Indian traffic—stops with inches spare between bumpers. With his crane hook dangling directly over the car driver’s seat. Imagine if the fellow had looked out his window and up.

I had a camera, but wish it were earlier in the day.

This is up. I’m seeing a lot of up lately. It’s a different up every few days, but it’s not terribly exciting when all ups feature the usual suspects in only varying garb.

The trouble with Pune is, it’s not Bangalore. I have no activity in the evenings. Life has devolved into alternating between work and home, where “home” of course is variable. The trouble with all variations of “home” is, there’s no table, only a bed, and a bed basically offers only one view and does all it can to keep you content with it.

And so I’m seeing a lot of up.

This landowner is very particular about whom he wants as tenants. Or
maybe he’s only being suggestive.

…the Union Bank of India for this hoarding. Either it’s a very smart
ad agency, or a very lame one. But did she have to be missing a tooth?

I’m doing something of a tour of Pune hotels. This is my third in just a week here. The first place, the company paid for initially, but it cost more than I was willing to pay for myself. The second was nice, but they kicked me out after three days because someone else had booked the whole place in advance. The third has been… well… interesting.

Because I’m expecting to move in with some colleagues in a few days, I opted to take the cheapest room available, one sharing a bathroom with other rooms on the floor. Both bathroom and and toilet are right next to my door, so it didn’t seem much of an inconvenience. I was wrong. The next morning, I woke to the gaggle of little kids. Kids in uniform, carrying school bags, filing into the adjacent room, a room with no beds but several desks and benches. A school embedded in a lodge? Now that was most curious. From the sound of it, their first period was a Physics class in Marathi.

But worse. It turns out that the only sink on the floor is not in the bathroom but in the corridor, so I stand there brushing my teeth while kids walk past, bang on the door, are refused entry for being late, and then can’t seem to decide whether to repent or rejoice. A youth walks past as I’m putting on my contact lenses, freezes, positions himself three feet behind, and stares into my mirror. He doesn’t budge when I stare back at him, so I return to washing the lens. His friends call from down the corridor. He flicks a glance and back, reluctant to leave before the show is over.

A repeat show this morning. The kids say their room is host to “Subodh Classes.” I attempt to take a picture of the room and one kid finds himself in my frame, and then he wants to show it to all his friends. They collect at my door even as I put away the camera. The fellow hovering outside the bathroom asks if I’m also a bank trainee. Then he discovers my electric toothbrush and asks “kai yeh?” (what’s this?) His curiosity stirred, he stares carefully as I apply paste and insert brush in mouth, asks if it is a “machine,” and continues staring for several minutes, from barely two feet away. I didn’t dare demonstrate my electric razor after that.

As of this evening, I’m now on a different floor with a bathroom all to myself. Sorry, but no pictures worth showing. I don’t have a lens wideangle enough for such compressed spaces.

In October, I applied to Sarai for an independent fellowship, to study how user interface affects discussion and community in online spaces. The selected list was announced today, and I’m among them.

For those interested, here is the full text of my proposal. It was written when I had only a few hours left to submit on time and is based on earlier email discussions, so please excuse the conversational tone and the lack of references.

Read on...

My incoming mail is now over 50% spam. Of the 70-odd messages that came in overnight, 42 landed in the junk folder. Among was this exquisite piece:

From: Neateye <NitaiGouranga@aol.com>
Subject: Gouranga
Date: December 15, 2004 5:07:26 AM GMT+05:30

Call out Gouranga be happy!!!
Gouranga Gouranga Gouranga ....
That which brings the highest happiness!!

So naturally I had to investigate. Turns out Gouranga is another name for Sri Krishna Chaitanya Mahaprabhu, a saint from the Hare Krishna cult. The slogan urging all to call out to Gouranga is of more recent origin, first seen plastered along British highways. This piece of spam, though, appears to be of a more devious purpose. While it looks like it’s from an overzealous Hare Krishna devotee, it’s more likely marketing for Grand Theft Auto. Look, for example, at this definition from the Urban Dictionary:

A feeling of happiness stemming from running down an entire column of Hare Krishnas in your car, as first invented in GTA1.

Splat! splat! splat! splat! splat! splat! splat! GOURANGA!

Ingenious, don’t you agree? PS: Happy birthday, ceres!