Twenty- five Seven

When dreams come crashing down

March 31, 2015

My first experience with the French was as a 17 year old, when I joined the Alliance Francaise de Bombay along with a few of my other friends in the Inter Arts Class. In those days, we privileged students who finished school from the Senior Cambridge or ISC Board were allowed to skip the first year of college and go straight into the Intermediate year or Inter as it was then called. We also were allowed to take French as a second language. Now anyone who has done French at that level will swear how easy it is to score marks especially in the grammar section which had basic verbs and very simple grammar. The literature was a bit difficult but manageable especially if you had a talent for picking up languages. However, since we had missed the first year of college French, we all joined up the Alliance classes which not only assured us a jump start but also ensured a better accent and more usable French where je suis became je peux in reality rather than just in black and white.

One of the advantages of joining this class, which we didn’t realise at the time of signing up, was the fact that classes were conducted by real French people – sometimes dashing young men and other times by women who were equally fascinating with their eccentricities and fashion and je ne sais quoi. So when we walked into class, we were struck by the fact that our teacher was an Alain Delon look alike. It was no wonder then that we didn’t miss a single class and gladly attended all the Quatorze Juillet functions that were held at the Taj’s Crystal room to celebrate with French wines and cheese and the city’s ritzy glitzy.

And with each passing July and tomes of French literature, my desire to visit France in general and Paris in particular was assuming epic proportions akin to a pilgrim’s desire to visit his place of worship. It took me a long while to get there…….almost quarter of a century before I made this much awaited journey to the promised land. And sadly, what a disappointment it was. The romance of the Rive Gauche, the grandeur of the Champs Elysee and even the hauteur of nouvelle cuisine paled in reality. Paris in October was a dreary city where the taxi drivers were rude, the streets dingy, Montmartre far from poetic and the Tour Eiffel a miniature bronze thingamajig that looked strangely comic.

So when I saw Google’s doodle commemorating the 126th anniversary of the opening of this iconic tower to the public, I was reminded of my disappointing French pilgrimage. Sitting on the upper deck of the Hop On Off Bus, I was horrified to find that the tiny tower didn’t get much larger up close. It looked tarnished and tacky and so unlike the beacon of hope and glitz that it was in my mind. Alas, this was one time when I wished I had not made my dream a reality.

I’m linking this to Write Tribe ProBlogger.
Walking Down Sai Baba Street

March 30, 2015

Our old friend Henk was in town so we invited him to join us for dinner at Trishna, Mumbai’s famous fish place. Sunday was his only free evening, so we booked a table for 7. p.m. Surprisingly, we reached Kala Ghoda much earlier than we’d bargained for and this left us time to explore the normally busy area just behind Rampart Row, which wore a deserted look .

Once the centre of a thriving Fort Business district, this neighbourhood descended into decrepitude after more glamourous business areas were established at Ballard Estate, Nariman Point and BKC. Luckily in the past few years, the area has seen a revival of sorts with several new eateries and quaint shops selling collectibles, Art, haute couture and jewelry ( Filter, Gaurav Gupta, Nirav Modi, Moksh) having sprung up on what is now known as Sai Baba Road and the adjoining lanes.

I’m also linking this page to Write Tribe Pro Blogger Challenge.
One small step forward

March 26, 2015

Like most things in my life, I am an accidental blogger. I’m sure I’m not alone in this either as most people I encounter have just somehow or the other got blogging without a campaign, agenda or even a voice. For the past few years though, I’ve been trying to figure out where I’m going wrong. Why is my blog not rocketing me into the blogosphere? There are hundreds of people like me who are personal bloggers , whose grammar and syntax is even worse than mine, so why am I still not even poised for take off?

Last year, I decided to pay a consultant who sadly took me for a ride and the only lesson I learnt is that one should choose one’s consultant well. My wrong choice meant that I was that much poorer in wallet and down even more in confidence at having been taken in by a trickster.

This Tuesday I came across NK at a tea party. NK was a middle aged grandmother like me, a self taught computer geek but with an aptitude for branding and marketing which she had honed as a professional in the advertising field where she’d worked several years. She was on a diet and while she watched me down bhelpuri after pizza, patiently listened to my woes. One thing led to another and I landed up at her home where she showed me where I was going wrong.

Firstly she told me that a personal blog is fluff or in other words mere entertainment. This is a vast field and very difficult to crack when you are neither a celebrity or an academic. According to her the way forward is with Twitter. It is with Twitter that one can make a dent in the blogosphere and develop a brand and hence a following.

This was indeed a revelation because I always thought twitter was what Tweety Bird did and that twitter was for twits especially of the teenage variety and was quite puzzled by all the tweets and re-tweets and favouriting and symbols that made up a tweet. How can one convey anything in 140 characters? How can everyone come up with funny and smart one-liners all the time?

Well, Social Media is the way of the future and communicating is everything. Consistent tweeting, net surfing and engaging with one’s followers is the only way to grow an audience. Identify your area of interest, follow the leader in that field, make relevant tweets and you will see a marked improvement in your blog’s performance.

Will she be proved right or wrong? I’m going to give it a try before endorsing this method to anyone. At least this advice was for free and the only thing I stand to gain is a painful wrist with carpal tunnel syndrome if not a wider audience!

When dreams come crashing down

Walking Down Sai Baba Street

One small step forward