Random Musings

Things from the news:
Girl killed by lightning at Chowpatty beach (she was holding a cluster of mobile phones for her friends)
Amitabh Bachchan aka Big B – cross between Harrison Ford and Chris Tarrant (hosts Indian WWTBAM?) ill in hospital
Rahul Mahajan, son of late leader of BJP party caught with drugs and his father’s ashes. Went to hospital, went to court, very big scandal.
Articles on bird flu (H5N1) focussing on compensation payouts to farmers who have destroyed their birds: was going to be based on electricity consumption per farm, but given multiple power cuts that wasn’t accurate enough so now it’s going to be based on floor area (0.8 cubic feet per bird).
Articles on poverty: apparently 80% of Mumbai’s population live on less than $2 per day.

Poster ads
Ads for Aamby Valley City – the place I saw up in the hills near Lonavala with its own private air strip.
Ad for some insurance company: manager, father, pillow (very sweet photo of baby sleeping on father’s chest)
Ad in the newspaper for European holidays, with (honestly!) a mention of the Leaning Tower of Pizza. Lovely image that conjures up…

I’ve noticed today that buses (usually) have drainage gaps at floor level inside – perhaps to also allow for draught to seep around your ankles when travelling, but probably mostly to let the rain out when carried in on people’s shoes and coats during the monsoon.

Are we too overprotective of our children? Or are the Indians not protective enough? Every day I see babies and small children being carried in their mother’s arms on the back of motorcycles (no one wearing helmets of course) or playing on the central reservation of highways of 3 lanes of traffic, or running around between cars at traffic lights to ask for money from car passengers.

People are eagerly awaiting the monsoon (looking forward to rain? “Yearning to feel the kiss of sweet Indian rain?” Sounds a bit batty to me, especially with the floods they had on July 26th last year, where people were trapped in the office for 2+ days.)

Road construction: there seems to be a lot of it going in on Mumbai. Noticing some of the construction techniques is amusing. They lay a thick (6”+) layer of concrete, in a perfect rectangle at some random point on the road they think looks as if it needs to be filled in, then make little paddy fields on top with some crumbly walls, then fill the wells with water. I presume this is to stop the concrete drying too quickly and cracking; the water perhaps is absorbed as it dries out and makes sure it’s smooth.

They have very few formal signs to warn of road works. The road we take to work is having drains fitted at the side of the road, and none of it has anything like cones, barriers or lights to warn you that there’s a 3’ hole in the road. And even more disturbing they have a nice bit of road at the side, which then stops suddenly with no warning. I don’t have photos of this (don’t take my camera to work as a rule) so don’t ask!