cleaning up my phone memory

new architecture in school. paul gets air conditioning

section 377 celebration at azad maidan

juhu gully construction

cinema city exhibition at sndt

goregaon oberoi mall and surroundings

cat on a retractable roof

wet flooded airport

parul

pankaj

clouds around a skyscrapers

this week

congratulations to jayesh and yashika. a college romance blooms into a marriage this week. jayesh and yashika are getting married and the events included a huge bollywood bash at radio club that i saw from the roof of the nearby hotel where we were at a party. the next day though as part of the lavish pre-wedding events for jayesh and yashika's wedding was a sangeet with shankar mahadevan at ncpa. and what a performance it was. the man made it look easy. the terrific ups and downs and improvisations inserted into the best of shankar ehsaan loy. the party songs and the hit ballads- kal ho na ho or maa- in which the entire audience sang along. but my favourite was 'sajda' from 'my name is khan'.

earlier kuntal, sonal and me took a short walk through an exhibit at the bmb gallery. work inspired by european art films. self consciously 'political' awful silliness made even more ridiculous by the fact that right above it at chemould a gieve patel retrospective is on. the contrast between the two make the bmb exhibition an embarrassment. at chemould gieve patels bodies of the people on then streets of the city seem to flatten themselves into pattern and texture- almost. half formed- on the verge of disappearing into mere shape- but not quite. then there are the sudden spurts of beauty like banana fronds reflected in a pool or a peacock on marine drive.

there has been time to kill in town over the past few days and we have been exploring the new version of perpetually growing slum-mall (sonals term) for the mega structure of labyrinthine corridors and commmodities that is phoenix mall. the latest addition is the palladium plaze with its fancy stone floor and ornate skylight through which no light enters. at every level designer shops sell generic looking clothes. the building ventilation system seemd ot be out of order. glass cobucles beocme ovens in parts and sudden movement into ice cold air conditionig guarantees a cold. the toilets have no ventilation at all and stinks while the parking lot gets the draft from the kitchens or smells of garbage. the cotton world guy told us that they are going to demolish the bar towards the street to make way for more shops. the new landmark is in the basement and has a huge collection of books but feels more like a clothes shop than like a book store.

public space mumbai

thakur mall on a sunday

street shots

city shots - thakur complex flyover / oberoi mall in festive mood

white tigers

i killed time in inorbit waiting to drive to kurla to pick mukul up yesterday. on the streets and the edges of the mall i clicked photographs of so many of aravind adiga’s white tigers. apparently docile, subservient and respectful to the men in the cars and the women on the cell phones; but inside resentful and angry, waiting for a bottle to break so that they can jab a shard of glass into someone’s throat. more power to them!(?)

some oberoi shots from the new phone

indraprashta and a new phone

the first shopping mall in borivili that had an atrium. Does that make it a mall? Shops sell second hand cell phones, gorgeously decadent prints on clothes that spill out into the atrium’s landscape and decorate the ceiling.

on thursday i bought a new phone with a new camera opposite at the nokia shop. these are the final pictures from the old one.

phoenix

phoenix rises from the flames but not in glorious bursts of sky like peninsula park nearby where the white and blue glass reflects off the clouds until they are all that remain. instead it is a subterranean world of schizoid surfaces and streets buried under layers of dust. the sky is only felt as dim light filtering from the top.

this is what is bigness. large flat areas that overlook nothing except more of the same. once in a while, if you do manage to step into one of the scooped out courtyards, knife like spears or monumental behemoths loom over you. the dungeon is the only place where you can feel safe from the prying eyes of the men in the towers. and here order collapses in incoherent madness. new surfaces clad on older ones, gleaming escalators leading to rotting corridors, grey concrete puddles in car parks as far as the eye can see and policemen at every corner telling you not to stay. the souk would be the medieval islamic parallel. but this lies outside even that. a labyrinth of only the neglected in betweens. even outside the confines of the mall, below the flyover real life carries on in the shadows of concrete.

le marche

on an island of asphalt, concrete and sewage rises a new mall between the rehab colonies and slums of oshiwara and the high rises full of tv serial wannabes is the new knife like silver and frosted glass clad le marche. the atrium is a cold multi reflective surface whose volume seems to increase the further up you go as escalators offset outwards and the terraces of different floors are revealed. above is a heavy undulating steel truss on steel columns and a glass roof making the upper floors unbearably hot and that bathes the whole mall in a carpet of criss crossing shadows. the food court is all wood-finish laminate warmth and the basement is the supermarket labyrinthine with digital blowups of fruits and smiling faces on any blank surface.

the entire thing is terribly made when compared to the glitz of the oberoi mall. the paint is peeling, the laminate chipped. it feels like its on the edge of ruin already- and it is brand new. this is the way the world is going to end. with hollow hot buildings precariously keeping up appearances as the cheaply bought floors begin to crack under the feet and the space frames gather cobwebs. the battle against desolation is fought everyday by uniformed sweepers and cleaners.