Colleague and Friend Harjinder Singh Taking a Nap in the VT Local Train!

Manish Grover's Birthday, We Had Fun!

Traditional Day in Church

Our church members decided to celebrate Kerala Day (the day on which Kerala came into existence) by wearing traditional Kerala "settu sarees". Pictured above are the women of our church. On extreme right is Mercy, my wife.

The Cool Dude with His Cool Glasses

In the Valley of These Hills Is Where I Live. Picture Taken from Menka's Office in Belapur

View of the Hills from Our Bungalow in Artist Village

A Writer at Home, Behind Me Is My Wife!

Ganga in Gangalayam

Ganga! My childhood friend loves forests and wild animals and has todate visited and photographed wildlife in around forty wild life sancturies in India.

Unfortunately during a recent trip to Ooty he along with a guide strayed into the forbidden territory of an angry elephant. He was chased by the pachyderm, lifted on horns, and being the diving goalkeeper of our school, he dived to one side. The wild elephant turned and gored him in the back where the horn entered his body and narrowly missed the spinal column and aorta.

The wound has healed and he is okay now. Here he is captured on my cellphone camera relaxing in the morning sun inside his bungalow in Chembur which we fondly call "Gangalayam."

Undeterred by the experience, he vows to go back into the forests once again. He has had a long association with wild life sancturies and nature parks, having been instrumental in getting Indira Gandhi to anoint Silent Valley in Kerala as a national wildlife park. If this hadn't been done, in all probability Silent Valley would have been converted into a huge dam at the cost of the wildlife and plant species there.

How ironic that a man who has campaigned to protect wildlife has been gored by the very creatures he is trying to protect.

Anup and Princy. Happy Married Life!

This is a picture of my cousin Rajanchayan's (on my mother's side) son Anup and Princy, who got married recently. I couldn't attend, though I wanted to. Anup lives and works in South Africa. It is said he was in school with the likes of Malayalam film actor Prithviraj, though I didn't check with him.

Anup and Princy were in Bombay to finalise visa formalities for Princy. He called me and I found that he was staying in the hotel near my office and told them to come over. Here they are in the atrium of Akruti Trade Center, Andheri, where I work.

A very happy married life to you both.

Man about Town

Been wandering around town and these are images I caught:


This lingerie maker is taking things a bit far, methinks!




















This is the crowd outside Andheri station which is so crowded commuters constantly look down to see what muck they are walking into.













This hoarding promises to teach English speaking for Rs 599 only! Amazing! I have been learning English all my life and still think my English is weak!











The new and spruced up Metro. I stood in queue but had to beat a hasty retreat when I saw the price of tickets. I used to watch movies for Rs 3.30 in the same theatre once! Now it cost 280 for what they call a Gold Seat. Are the seats made of Gold, or something? Even then it's unreasonable. Don't know, I couldn't even enter, the price kept me away.

















I shot this in the atrium of a building I visited. The rings you see are the balconies of different floors. On top is the transparent roof.

It's my son Ronnie who is the actual bike freak. Here he is meditating (sort of) in front of the bike I bought him from my wife's savings. He has quite expensive tastes as you can see, besides bikes he loves Bollywood films, MTV reality shows, music, muzak, mujic (rap, weird sounding screeches he calls music, Michael Jackson), and still watches cartoon television. He is doing engineering in computer science and like all youngsters has a cavalier **attitude** towards life and the situations around him.

Me on a Pulsar, 200 cc.

It has been a life-long ambition to ride a bike. At least, I have done it vicariously on my friend's 200 cc Pulsar.

Caferati Bombay May 2008

Caferati Bombay May 2008
Originally uploaded by soney

Suniti caught me at the May 2008 readmeet of Caferati.

Caferati Bombay May 2008

Caferati Bombay May 2008
Originally uploaded by soney

Me reading a travel piece I wrote on my recent visit to Kerala at Caferati's May 2008 read meet.

From right: My wife Mercy (laughing with her mouth closed), son Ronnie and Mercy's sister Molly outside Molly's beautiful home in Keezhvaipur in Kerala. No, Ronnie doesn't fly Emirates, though he will fly if Emirates gives him free tickets for advertising their airline.

These are my schoolmates from left: Chandran, Ajit and Sarasa. We met at Grand Central in Chembur because our school Adarsha Vidyalaya was situated in Chembur.

March 2008 Caferati Meet

The March 2008 meet of Caferati was held at Kareena Merchant's lovely house in Nepean Sea Road. The terrace where the meet was held faced the sea and had a really good aura, adorned by exotic flowers, and caressed by the cool wind from the sea. A good time was had, doubtless.

Me, My Present Job

This is me at my present job. A bit of relaxation in the heavy, neck-deep schedule of work. I write corporate communications, brochures, press releases, and edit the in-hourse journals.

March 2008 Caferati Readmeet Against the Setting Sun

This is me holding forth at the March 2008 meet of Caferati. I read my poem "The Platform". A detailed report on my main blog (writer poet John P Matthew's daily blog).

The Kala Ghoda Festival - Pictures

The Kala Ghoda Festival just concluded at, where else, Kala Ghoda. Well there used to be a Kala Ghoda (Black Horse) here -- though I haven't seen it -- carrying the supreme behind of HRH Edward IV or some such dignitary of yesteryears. As one who is drawn to this area of Mumbai, having worked there close to four years of my life, and having passed the area every morning close to a quarter of my life time, this area has a deep resonance as far as art, literature, culture (though I am not the culture-vulture type), eating, etc. are concerned. I have sat at the old "Woodside Inn" and ate, I have seen art shows by Husssein and Souza, I have drank the potion at Samovar and Paris Craze (which is now "Soul Fry Casa" or some such), I have seen movies at the Stuttgart Hall at the Max Mueller Bhavan and ogled girls of an agency that specialised in employing only good looking girls. Well I have done it all, and more.

So imagine my surprise when I land up in this festival and find that instead of a festival of the Western type this one was our typical Indian "Kumbh Mela" with giant wheels and sculptures of a man and a horse. Wherever we go we generate a lot of noise and this crowd was generating a noise equal to several trains arriving at Victoria Terminus simultaneously. And there were fighting calendar sellers, book sellers, curio sellers, ice cream and gol gappa sellers, the works!

What warmed the innards was the literary section tucked into the David Sassoon Library garden (I am a life member of this library and was a managing committee member once). At the poetry slam pictured above, one could see heart-felt poetry being recited and sung with theatrical gestures and improvisations. Arka Mukhopadhyaya wore a smallish drum around his neck, which he beat sporadically. A good time was had by poetry lovers. Actually as Rashmi Dhanwani said, "It isn't an audience, audience, but friends and relations of the performers." To cut this long rambling short the friends and family of the performers (yes my friends were on stage too) had a good time.