Rain rain go away come another day, little johny wants to play.

Hmmm the rains are here. The lovely cloudy skies, the cool breeze, the puddles, the getting wet when you are about to open your umbrella etc. the list just goes on.

In Mumbai unfortunately the rains are more of a nightmare rather than a beautiful experience. It’s about some things like the bad roads, the BMC, the high tide timings and yes the local trains.

I remember that as a child we would wait for the monsoons. We would want to get wet in the rain, make paper boats and put them in the puddles, have bhajiyas, etc.. There was that excitement of spotting a rainbow also.

But since the past 5 years the monsoons kid of brings all the kind of negative feelings with it. People are getting scared of the water. One doesn’t want to go out fearing that they either might get stuck somewhere or getting sick after getting wet. People are getting less and less immune health wise so they don’t want to go out. They are scared of eating out also same reason. There is one more reason also people don’t go out. I guess the various government organizations are responsible quite a lot about the scares of people. The water is contaminated, the roads are bad, and the gutters are not cleaned on time.

But I sometimes wonder whether the cleanliness of the city is only in the hands of the BMC. I think that we as citizen are equally to blame. We keep throwing things on the roads. Well I can’t say that all of us are like that but the thing is that there is a very negligible amount of us who don’t litter.

The other thing which has become very popular point of conversation is the high tide timings. Everyday of the monsoon there will be a new tide time and life seems to revolve around that time. It is said that if the is very heavy rain when there is a high tide, and then we are in for very big problems. The thing is that that’s when flooding will happen.

Personally I love the monsoons they give us a cool weather after the hot summer and it also gives us water. Everything gets cleaned and trees look more green.

What kind of change is this?

I think that India as a country has advanced a lot. I have seen a remarkable change in quite an avenue. I have witnessed a lot of the change in my short life so far. It makes me wonder what next is going to happen. I am very proud of the modernization of things in my country.

I remember we didn’t have cable as kids. We had only two channels Doordarshan national and doordarshan metro. We called them DD1 and DD2. They had interesting programmes. Also we had radio in which there was only MW and SW. Those were fun to listen to. Best was the SW frequency there were so many different sounds in the same channel it was very difficult to understand what was being said or sung.

Later STAR TV started. STAR was an abbreviation; Satellite Television Asian Region was its full form. That was a welcome break as DD was all Hindi and Marathi, so STAR TV was English. All nice programmes there. Then came MTv so we very extra happy as we could listen to English music. Later of course there was a flood of channels like Zee TV, STAR WORLD etc. At the same time there were a lot of audio cassettes of movies, bands, musicians etc. which one could buy and listen to.

After that came the computer. That was like a Pandora’s Box. WOW its like never ending source of activity in every field. It still keeps bringing out different surprises. Along with that there was a start of better looking television sets and video sets. Then there was a lull in things for some time. Then came more TV channels for which I think cable was responsible.

Sometime after that we had CDs and CD players. Also FM radio had started by then. DVDs also started coming in. Our cinemas also improved in their quality. Dolby sound was a big thing. Multiplexes also came in.

And the list is endless with laptops, notebooks, ipods, iphones, fancy mobiles, and God knows what.

But with so much improvement in technology and science does it change a person’s mentality? Terrorist activities, wars, riots, crimes, murders, rapes, robberies etc.. The same technology which has helped in making lives so much easier has also been used to make life hell for you.

The same computer which has helped us with a lot of things are now being hacked into and meddled around with , credit cards which help us not carry cash around are also being made into fakes and used to fleece the poor card holder. The terrorist have been using technology for their attacks as well. I dont want to go into detail I guess you know. Kids are sing mobile phones for wrong things like making MMS clips of fellow students and passing the clips around.

My question is are we ready for so much change? Are we responsible enough to use technology?

Unbelievable things happening.

Just in the previous post I mentioned about the Noida murders. Now it so happens that the father of the girl murdered is the killer. Unimaginable, that is. I am a daughter I can't imagine such a thing.

Now the problem I have is against two things. One is the stupid over-enthusiastic media and the other is the very shoddy work done by the Noida police. Its so crazy the whole damn thing. While the investigation was still going on the different media houses had formed their own investigation teams. Now my problem here is doesn't the media have any sense that touching the crime scene is tampering the case?, the media houses have touched everything the mattress on which the girl was killed they touch the doors. Then they form their own conclusions. They don't forget to blame the police that they haven't collected the evidences. I think the police should file cases against the media houses for tampering with the scene. What all they do to get TRP ratings high.

The other is the police even if they have any evidences or proofs but that doesn't make them come all out and talk all utter nonsense to the media. They have given 2 motives for the killings. Which probably can't be the case. The Noida police have been very bad in their investigations since the Nathari case ( where skeletons were found buried in a bungalow). I am very happy with the fact that I live in Mumbai Mumbai police mite have their own problems but at least they would behave more responsibly .

My heart goes out for the mother of the girl.

Media hype or...?

Over the past one week the hindi news channels are going mad over one murder case which has happened in Noida.

A girl by the name of Arushi who was 14 years old was found murdered in her house in Noida and also the house help by the name of Hemraj has also been murdered. This has happened on the 15th night, today is 21st and the channels are continuously giving a breaking news of the case. Weird it is. These channels act like they are the masters of solving crimes. Some of the channels are forming their own investigating teams to solve the crime. As though the police are fools and don't know their work. The channels keep saying that the killers will be booked any moment now etc..

At one time the channels were showing a live scene of the police trying to enter a door. The crazy part was that the police were trying to unlock the door with a kitchen equipment, it looked so funny. I know that it is a serious affair out there but how silly to unlock the door with a kitchen thing. Oh my God.

The reporter also had a problem when the parents of the girl murdered went to a temple. The parents might have gone to the temple to pray for the justice for their daughter. The reporter said that in such a time the parents have gone to the temple they should not go etc..

I would like to ask isn't there anything else to report. There were blasts in Jaipur, elections in Karnataka, India's minister has gone to Pakistan maybe a lot more. They do mention the other stories but in passing. Some of the channels have made stories out of the non- seasonal rain that has come in the national capital New Delhi. I would say what is the big deal ha?

Thank God for the English channels they at least have other stories to show and talk about. They have good programmes which give insights to other parts of India.

Other silly things that the channels show are the behind the scene stuff happening in the much watched IPL matches.

I would like to know what you guys feel.... Bolo ap ki kya rai hai? baltao?

Making of Passport

After getting married there is a lot of paper work involved. With paper wok I mean changing name and address in all the things that really matter.

We ( by we i mean hubby and me) decided to start by re-issuing my passport. We felt that that would not be difficult. First, we found out the overall process from the travel agent in the area. We also went to the official website for passports of our Indian government. (Roshan also needed to get a new passport issued as all the pages in his passport were exhuasted because he travels a lot).There was something which is called verification certificate, that is given to you by a government official. So we dug into our address books and searched through all our connections. My brother then remembered that one of his friend's dad is an IAS officer. So we went to him and got the verification certificates. Oh my God what a waste of time these government offices are. They take half an hour to type a letter then they take another half hour to get the the letters stamped. So there were 2 letters one hour wasted and again both these letters have to be stamped so one hour there got wasted.

The IAS officer is a very sweet man he kept talking to me about his work and his wife and kids. All the while he kept cribbing about the way the government peons and other staff operate. He was telling me that he was totally helpless with the way it is done. He said that if in a government office does this kind of delay they are termed as inefficient and corrupt. At the same time if a delay of the same kind occurs in a corporate setup it will be termed as internal politics and a way of functioning. Crazy that was.

Anyway I finally got the letters, but it was a good 2 and half hours later. Now 1 whole day was lost so couldn't do the passport submission that day. Then we had a affidavit from a lawyer to state that we are Indians and have nothing wrong with our identification. That didn't take that much time. It was done in say half hour.

We had filled the form online. So there was very little hand writing to do. Oh yes when I was at the IAS officer's office, my hubby was at the passport office submitting our forms and other documents. The next day I went with hubby to the old passport office to submit the other documents. We wanted what is called the Tatkal service. So we submit the papers and were called a week later for just a stupid signature in front of an official. That was a lot of craziness as I had my chappals torn by a very rude woman.

Then we went back home and after some days I had a rude shock, a police officer came home and made a big ruckus asking me all kind of questions , "Who lives here? Where is Roshan D'silva? Does he ever live here? or does he not live here? where is he right now? who are you of him? etc. etc."
All these questions were asked in a very rude way and because of the loud volume my neighbor came out and she was also asked all kind of questions whether Roshan lives here or not. Apparently he had come earlier and we were not at home so he figured that we don't live here. Then I called Roshan and we went to the police station and gave them the required documents etc. so that was ok. The officer in the police station was very helpful, told us what the next steps were, made us sit down and spoke with us very nicely.

Anyways Roshan's passport hasn't yet come but we did find out why. Oh by-the-way my passport came without any delay. It is Roshan's which is taking all the time. Now apparently all his previous passports have been issued overseas so the procedure is different and they have to do some verification as he has never had his police verification done in India. Now we understand all the delay. So we were all the while blaming the system but it's actually the bureaucracy which is the culprit. Thanks to the passport website we know the status of the most important piece of identification one needs to prove he/she is Indian. Lets hope his passport also come as soon as possible. The only sad part is that the Jumbo passport which we have applied for is only 60 pages so according to Roshan he has to repeat this process every 3-4 years as that how long it takes him to exhaust all the pages.

I can fairly say that we need a lot of patience when it comes to dealing with the government offices in this country. PHEW!!!!

Being married is loads of FUN

Married life is fun…….. At least so far!!!

Life was so protected and taken care of when I was single. Parents did everything for me I had them to go back to and ask for direction. Now its all about doing things oneself. Not that my husband won’t give me direction or advice, only it is different. Twenty eight years of your life you become used to a certain way of explanation of things and situations, the husband also has a certain way of being told things or telling things. So for me it’s all about learning. I am being observant taking things in one by one. It’s fun.

The story so far is that I moved out of Cuffe Parade and moved into Marol Andheri east. It’s a coincidence that I was a Marolia and I have shifted to Marol. I am now a D’silva.

Arranging the house was a task, because mom used to do all that back home. I decided to target one room at a time. My first room I started from was the kitchen. That’s according to me the room which is used the most. Lots of things were kept in a not very organized manner. There were some things which I had never seen before. Then there were some other things which had been used long ago. I made a list of things that I am used to using which were non-existent. The things that I was sure that I or anyone else would not use I got rid of. By getting rid of I mean I sold it to the scrap dealer of the area. Made money out of the things I thought were useless but I made money out of it so I don’t think that they were useless after all. That was so much fun.

The next room was the bedroom. I had to make it more cozy and a place to retreat in at the end of the day. Arranging this room involved setting up the cupboards and the dressing table. The bedroom didn’t take as long as the kitchen. I did get rid of a lot of weird looking clothes and bedding material. Now the sad part is that one cant make money out of the useless clothing. Anyways I did the bedroom. Stuffed all the clutter into places which one didn’t know existed. Now there is so much place around.

Next was the little balcony which is attached to the bedroom. That was a task, as there were quite a lot of things there but as I had become used to getting rid of things I did it here too. Now there is space in balcony also.

The living room didn’t need that much of arrangements as there was nothing really one can do in the room. Only it needed to be tidier. That’s what I did. Yes the sofas needed to be re-upholstered. The cushions needed to be completely changed so that’s what we did. There is one long window which had the oddest looking curtain on it. We made a decision and changed them as well. The room looks very livable.

There are two sets of long windows in the house. One in the living room and the other in the balcony in the bedroom. Both of them have what is called box grills. These box grills had some things store on them. Again these things were left and forgotten. Pipes, rods wooden planks, tiles and some small rubber strips I had to get rid of these things as well. I got money out of some of the things and had to throw the other things away. These windows are sliding so they have the railings on which the windows are fitted. These railing had so much of dust and cement in it. For that we bought a vacum cleaner. We used it to clean the railings. Now they are cleaner than before. That was fun too.

There are three different furniture pieces. Two tables and one sofa-cum-bed which don’t really go with the house’s looks but I haven’t managed to find any takers. They are kind of a eye sore in the house.

We also got ourselves a landline connection and a broadband connection.

The house is to some extent a home now. Over all being married is lots of fun.