Twenty- five Seven

Skies from this week’s Mumbai

February 23, 2016

Unlike last week , the smog over Mumbai seems to have cleared and we are back to our sunny days. However it won’t be long before the sun is really strong and we look back to these cold days past with longing

Waiting at the traffic lights at Chowpatty . At almost any given time there is a five minute wait at the traffic lights and I always try to capture the scene from this vantage point.

The clouds over Marine Drive. It looked suspiciously like rain and the weather was quite funny – chilly till mid afternoon, then hot and again chilly at night. Luckily, though there were no stuffy noses to deal with!

Jer Mansion is one of the oldest buildings of Bombay and was supposedly very stylish. This building at Metro is now in the process of being pulled down and this is probably one of few photographs I’ll be able to capture before it becomes a pile of rubble.

Anazingly blue sky at Dhobi Talao. The world always looks better through my rose tinted dark glasses but this time I could see this gorgeous sky with clear vision. Amazing sky near the Embarkation HeadQuarters.

A gorgeous sunset from my front balcony. Every day I get the most spectacular sundowners and no matter how many times I see it, I can’t resist capturing it on film. How long, though before the towers get higher and I can only capture a thin sliver of sky?

Catching the sun at Haji Ali. Waiting again at the traffic lights, I saw my favourite Imperial Tower glinting in the setting sun.

Finally, I couldn’t help look up and capture this streak of white cloud in the evening sky.

Somehow clouds make me feel like reaching out and touching them. Does that happen to you?

With the weekend coming up, the evenings are longer and sunsets spectacular. Hope to catch some lovely sunsets this coming week.

Have a great weekend.

Linking this post to Skywatch Friday . Do drop in to see more skies from around the world.
Where have all those Mondays gone? #MondayMusings

February 22, 2016

Today I realised that actually I am a lazy person. I also realised that I only function under pressure and with deadlines – after all I am an Indian and we Indians are like that only. Sometimes I find it hard to write, so I find it easy to stick to a meme, or a blog hop or even respond to a prompt, hence when Corinne announced a weekly post every Monday, I was happy to jump on . Hey! I thought to myself, that’s 52 posts taken care of – if I have to post every Monday. Similarly, I participate in Skywatch Fridays which means that’s another 52 posts taken care of. In addition if I link up to 52 WOW prompts on Blogadda, it gives me a total of 156 posts that I simply have to post.

Now you will probably wonder why I am obsessed with all these numbers. Actually, I am not into Statistics and actually find that numbers do lie. A long, long time ago when we were in college, a friend was given a dismal score of 3 out of a possible score of 100. Naturally we were aghast because she definitely deserved more than that. I remember going with her to the master and heard her plead her case. The master asked for the paper and promised to re-check her answers. A week later he gave it back with a revised score of 6! This time there was a collective gasp from the four of us who had accompanied her to the Staff Room. The master looked at us with amusement and said, ” Well, you can’t complain because your marks have increased by 100%”. Ever since that day, I find that statistics aren’t always true indicators of reality.

geralt / Pixabay

So, coming down to the numbers, I have been tracking my visitors and views and posts etc on Google Analytics and found that January was a good month with increased visitors and views. However, February, which began well soon faced a slump because of Bai problems no less. Suddenly, I found myself inundated with work – baby sitting, housework, cooking, grocery shopping, content writing and absolutely no time to even think, let alone write.

I realised then that 52 Mondays were not happening, nor were 52 Fridays and 52 WOW weekends. I wonder what happened to all those Mondays?

Do you think if I start tagging them with serial numbers they will be easier to keep track of?

p.s. It’s obvious I’m linking this to #MondayMusings
Hair or not #IAmCapable

February 15, 2016

According to me, man may be known by the company he keeps but a woman is known by the hair she wears.

A long, oily plait means a nerd.

A short , unruly mop means a tomboy .

A neat bun is a schoolteacher.

A short perky bob is a flirt .

But what is a thick mop of unruly curls make you?

It made me a Gollywog , a fact not helped by my father’s constant teasing that I was picked up from Ajegule market when we lived in Africa.

Luckily for me the use of this derogatory word was banned and I was called another name “Indira Gandhi” largely because of my long nose and dour expression.

But my entire existence has been spent in trying to tame my hair into something more presentable.This was in the days before hair spas and treatments that relaxed your hair and massaged your ego so I had to resort to overnight oiled hair and herbal concoctions to make my hair silky and smooth.

I must have done something right because one of my neighbours began calling me Demi Moore as I walked around the garden with my oversized glasses till one day Mr M ,the acknowledged rake in our building rolled down his window and leered at me and asked me to accompany him to the Race Course!

The next day I pulled my hair in an unflattering poly tail when I went for a walk.

I don’t know why a woman is judged by her hair.

The strangest reaction I got was feel a steer urchin who refused to eat a sandwich I’d given him, preferring to pass it on to someone else. When I asked him why he said because it was non-vegetarian . I was astounded when he told me that my short hair and Western wear made him come to such a conclusion!

Today after all these years, my hair has become thin and flyaway , peppered with white and grey. I didn’t know how different I looked till a friend from the past remarked ” How different you are! You don’t look like you anymore! ”

I wondered what she classified me as now.

, “I’m breaking stereotypes based on appearance by sharing my experience for the #IAmCapable activity at BlogAdda in association with Nihar Naturals.”