SG OwnBlog

Mumbai, around Midnight  I usually talk to my mother every day for about half an hour on the phone. It is not we have a lot of things to talk about. But still, we continue. The usual discussions revolve around dogs and cats in our neighborhood back home, how folks back there are doing, the importance of by brother’s future choices, my provident fund and so on. Last night my mother experienced something interesting. This was about a man who lived in our neighborhood. She was in our ruby red Swift car and while returning home she saw the man in gloves feeding a few street dogs with his own bare hands. I mean he was literally putting morsels of food in the little mouths of the dogs. Our whole family loves dogs and this generosity touched my mother and she remembered it well enough to tell it to me. It was actually nice. We do see people dropping food off on the streets for street dogs to lick them clean. That is considerate enough. So what this man did was indeed special. My mother

It is about 2 km from our hostel to our Lecture Hall Complex. The Lecture Hall Complex was the place where our classes were held. I mean, that’s what happened usually. At times we had to go to the respective departments to attend, but they were really rare. Anyway, this is about the 2km road from Hostel 12 to the LHC. If you have been there you would know how big tall trees stand on either side of the road. They were so tall and dense that it would be dark on a sunny day. There were birds, monkeys and squirrels who would play on them. It was indeed fun to watch. There was one problem. Almost all the trees looked alike and distinguishing one from another was difficult. So we called them Hostel 7 tree. Hostel 9 tree and the all time favorites - Hostel 11 trees. Then one day while taking the regular bus service that took us from our hostel to the academic section, I noticed a huge tree that looked totally different from any other. There is a road that bends to the left when you driv

It used to rain very heavily in Mumbai during the monsoon. It still does. But this is from the time I was undergoing my grad studies. From my window in the ground floor of the hostel that I lived in, I could see a couple of tents with dish antennas attached to them. There was a saffron flag that flew defiantly atop a mast on the roof of a single story building. I always wondered if the simple houses and the people hid something mysterious. One day, I got my rain boots, torch and decided to look what was in there. The tents were totally deserted, except for a boy in shorts playing with a football. I moved towards the well that I could see from my hostel window. As I approached it, the boy disappeared in the alley before me. The well was strange. It had no water. I flashed my torch and found a flight of stairs going down after about a meter of nothing. I looked around. No one was there. Holding my torch I sat over the well and positioned myself such that I could land on the stairs safel