Rava Idli

This is a commercial for ready made Idli mix.  Idli are delicious little rice flour pancakes that are a popular breakfast food in the south of India.  I have my colleague to thank for this little gem...a must watch :-)

Kala Ghoda Festival

Saturday we decided to head down to the famous Kala Ghoda art festival.  This three week festival includes visual art, crafts, and street performances.  The name Kala Ghoda means black horse, a reference to the black stone statue of King Edward VII that once dominated the central square of the neighborhood.  After Indian independence the statue was relocated to a nearby zoo but the neighborhood still retains the name Kala Ghoda.  The festival was more than a little crowded but we still managed to have a good time :-) See pics below.

B.E.S.T Day Ever

Recently we also took a trip downtown using the Mumbai B.E.S.T. buses!  Another beautiful example of Mumbai's amazingly efficient suburban transit system.  The red double decker buses are always absolutely packed with people hanging out of windows and doors.  We managed to catch a bus that was not too crowded though some of us didn't manage to get seats! :-) Check out some pics below.

Bhaji Street

When we were out and about Saturday we passed through a local market called, surprisingly enough, Vegetable Street :-) Old ladies selling every manner of fruit and veg eyed us warily while animated bhajiwallas shouted to us as we made our way down this amazing little street. Got some great pics!

Tiffin Time

Today I packed my first tiffin...or rather my maid / cook packed my first tiffin (how I love her) :-)  For those of you wondering "WHAT is a tiffin?!".... A tiffin, my friends, is an awesome cylindrical indian lunchbox.  The tiffin consists of 4 separate tin containers stacked on one top of the other.  In each separate compartment you will find either rice, dal, curry, and roti (bread).  My tiffin containers are stacked and placed in a tiffin thermos to keep them warm and steamy delicious until lunch at the office.  I personally carry my own tiffin to the office, but the city also has a unique way of delivering tiffins if need be....  The famous ISO 2000 certified Dabbawalas carry over 200,000 lunches from homes in the suburbs to offices throughout the city.  Here is how it works:  The dabbawalla comes to your house around 10am to receive your tiffin after you have left for the office.  Then the tiffin is taken to the local train station via bicycle where it is sorted according to destination before being loaded on the train.  The tiffin travels to the appropriate railway station and is then delivered to your office.  Now here comes the best part....  After you have eaten, the tiffin is collected from your office and the whole process is reversed with the tiffin being delivered to your home in the afternoon.  And all this for a monthly fee of around 350 rupee (7 dollars)! This process is famously efficient are with only 1 mistake made in every 6 million deliveries.  The dabbawalla organization is largely illiterate but manages to run one of the most efficient supply chains in the entire world entirely without computers and using only public transportation (Mumbai local trains) to make deliveries.  Pretty cool!  They also wear fabulous little white hats that I love. :-)

Local Laundry

Dhobi Ghat

This weekend we were lucky enough to have some friends visit from the USA!  It was so wonderful to have visitors and best of all they gave us an excuse to be tourists in our own city :-)  On Saturday we decided to take a trip to Mumbai's most famous laundromat...Dhobi Ghat.  This huge open air laundry is where most of the city's clothes are washed, dried, and ironed every day.  A dhobi, or washerman, will come to your house every morning to collect your wash and deliver any wash from the previous day.  He will then take your dirty clothes; wash them, dry them, and iron them within 24 hours, and return them the next morning.  All this for about 6 rupee (10 cents) per piece!  We took a local train to the Dhobi Ghat which was also a first.  Unbelievably, the local train moves about 6.9 million commuters on a daily basis!  Needless to say we opted not to take the train at peak hours.  Apparently, if you do so, you will not step onto the train of your own volition, but rather be carried in...bag and all :-).  Each train has around a 1,000 person capacity but during rush hour carries somewhere around 4,000 people.  Unsurprisingly, there are around 600 deaths each year due to people falling off or out of the train.  But safety standards be damned, we took the train and it was quite a pleasant experience!  Check out some pics from Dhobi Ghat above.

Mumbai Weekend

I have been neglecting the blog....BUT we have visitors coming this weekend all the way from the USA!  Will have some good pics to share on Monday.  In the meantime check out this uber-cool art exhibition that was held in Dharavi, Asia's largest slum, last weekend.  Basically, these three artists are painting murals all over the slum and are also helping to promote arts education and awareness in the area.  They have actually set up house in the slum, teaching art classes to local children and painting houses free of charge!  Unfortunately we didn't make it to the exhibition last weekend in the slum but I hear they may do a repeat...fingers crossed! :-)

Click here to visit the project site...and check out the slideshow!