Tag: mumbai

RJ Malishka, the BMC and the underlying breach of our freedom

Prasad AjinkyaLeave a comment

If you have been listening to Red FM channel in Mumbai, then one of the celebrity RJs they have is Malishka. As part of a radio jingle, she made up this video –

Everyone knows that in Mumbai, rains wreck everything. This year, in fact we have yet to see a day where the entire city has come to a stand still. Having said that, there are a lot of gaps that BMC needs to address. The video was made as a satire, since then, it has had more than 3M views.

So what’s the big deal?

Instead of acting on this creative complaint, what BMC officials chose to do was extremely childish. They organized a “raid” on RJ Malishka’s place and supposedly “found” dengue mosquito larvae.

Then the local Shiv Sena team created a spoof video of this song and BMC went on to file a 500 Cr INR defamation case against the RJ.

All this over a silly jingle that was created. Yes, it was aired, and many people heard it and saw the video.

The big deal is that an individual’s freedom of expression, and the freedom of press is being trampled with here. I don’t know whether I would classify this video under press or under entertainment, but what I do know – is that there is more than a grain of truth to the song.

By reacting like a bully, the BMC has shown how it takes feedback. The next time Shiv Sena talks about giving the marathi manus a voice, think again. It’s all talk.

With Foodpanda Good Food is a click away!

Prasad AjinkyaLeave a comment

I have always believed that a person can live off the internet. With virtual offices and office-less organizations being a reality now, one can operate perfectly without leaving their house. Having said that, ordering food online was not being done so well in India … yes there are many people who are trying to do this for quite some time now, however I believed no one had nailed the experience.

Until today!

FoodpandaI decided to give Foodpanda a try. The site features many restaurants in India with their menus. I went to find the nearby restaurants in Mumbai. You can choose to directly go to your favourite restaurant and start ordering, or you can provide your locality and area and find interesting joints from where you could order. All online.

I decided to discover places and found a place called Rocket Sandwiches … the prices were affordable and the menu looked great. After 10 minutes, I was done ordering and the order was confirmed!

Foodpanda Order
The order which I placed on Foodpanda

The good part about the site is that the expectations and the wait time were given on the site for each of these restaurants. These wait times are fairly accurate and I was pleasantly surprised that the order arrived at my doorstep in the same amount of time.

The Pros

  • Simple site and to the point
  • The ordering process works and does not require you to be a rocket scientist
  • All the information you would want while ordering food is provided
  • Entire process is automated, I did not have to talk to a single person throughout the process
  • Good way to explore your neighbourhood joints or order food if you are in a new locality
  • The site keeps track of all my orders and allows me to quickly re-order the same items (I’ll just have my regular!!)

The Cons

Yes, there are a few of those!

  • There are quite a few modal pop-ups (which open-up as a separate layer of the page) in the site. Thankfully, you can close those pop-ups.
  • Ditto for the site-chat. If I do not wish to chat, then why is the functionality asking me to chat.

All in all, I am going to keep using this site!

Where is the Marathi Manus?

Prasad Ajinkya2 Comments

For the past three years, I have been living in Mumbai. The city never ceases to amaze me with its variety, its vibrance and the sheer number of people it feeds. One of the threads that is seen snagging almost all the political conflicts in this place is the Marathi Manus. I think the term was coined and abused by the senior Thackeray, after which it has become the Congress equivalent of the Aam Aadmi.

Ask yourself this, how many times have you seen this ubiquitous Marathi Manus in action?

  • How many times, is he given an accolade for some achievement or something?
  • How many times does the society celebrate him?
  • How many time does he get cited in the newspaper (and not as a collective noun)

The list could go on, but I guess, if any individual does manage to do any of the above, then that person is automatically separated from the collective identity of the Marathi Manus. It’s a socialist collective noun.

And, that’s precisely where you will see him. The morchas, the ganpati mandals and the gokulashtamis, the political party rallies and the voting booth stints, the fairs and the trains. All places where there is a sea and no scope to stand out, that’s where the collective stands out the most.

That saddens me, the fact that this term requires a collective to define itself, and will always stay around a collective. A collective which is meant to be led, and to be manipulated.

Mumbai Rain, the Driver’s Pain

Prasad Ajinkya2 Comments

While the Twitter world went abuzz with the Mumbai Rains, I was not seeing the big deal with rains. So what?

Then I went to my car on my drive back to home.

  1. Potholes are not visible, you have to look for them and differentiate the pot holes from shallow puddles
  2. The car is slow to react
  3. You come to know nuances of your car when driving in rains, it makes noises that you never knew it could!!
  4. Vipers + Drizzle makes for an irritating screensaver while driving
  5. WIndows and windshield fogs up
  6. Mumbaikars run to their home like madmen when it rains, in cars. So more traffic

All this in one drive back home. Eagerly waiting the monsoons :-)

World Champions!

Prasad Ajinkya2 Comments

It’s Diwali in Mumbai. I can hear to the fireworks still going on … as Dhoni and the Indian team is getting prepared for lifting the world cup.

Cricket is a religion in India, and you could see it today as many Indians in the stadium were praying during the last few tense moments. The entire nation had come to a stand still during the final match of the World Cup 2011.

I had to drop my parents off to the railway station, and the roads were as empty as they normally are at 2am in the morning. Traffic signals were not working, auto rickshaws were not there. Imagine no traffic near Andheri Station!!

A final note, I had been a critic of MS Dhoni, but I am happy to admit that I was wrong. Well played Mr. Cool!! Hats off!! And Thank You!!

A side note … where is Ms. Pandey?