Jamie Durie's - Bombay Blitz - Landscape Tips

The Bombay Blitz team have been busy this week bringing a new face to the walls and public spaces around Bombay.
Graffiti or street art in Mumbai is currently limited to the busiest beanbag bloke in Bombay, with nearly every spare space covered with rough aerosol "Beanbags 2640 7329" and glossy product advertising taking up much of the remaining eye height vertical space. For the spaces below waist height, Bombayites have come up with a novel way to achieve not only a well balanced, interesting visual scene but they've also stumbled on a way to keep those pesky pissers from stinking up the place.... Yes, with minimal effort and little spend of the Rupee you too can bring art, religion and a little sanitation to the mases.
OK time for this weeks Blitz tip..

If you have a wall on your property get down to you local religious tile store and grab a few tiles of any faith or following. Don't be shy the more the merrier, Christ, Ganesh, Sikh or God... Mention this article and get 15% off any purchase of 30 or more tiles.

Next get yourself a work gang together and stick your new tiles to the wall!
You'll be surprised how calm you'll feel with all that Godly goodness around you and best of all.. those pesky pissers will eventually run out of walls to piss on and use the public toilets 30m away!

Til next week, good gardening and remember to watch where you walk...

Team India of the future...

The Indian boys love being in photos... We're not sure who these young blokes from Kerala thought they were, but bets are on that they see themselves as India's cricketing future..

Been an' gone to Goa.

A few weeks ago "Ram Krupa" played host to a final few guests. Jane, "Mata Ray Jane", passed through on her way to Thailand and Vietnam before heading back to Western Australia. Jane had a crack at the life in Mumbai, experiencing being a 'first class lady' on the trains before heading to Kerela to soak up the relaxed South Indian way. A day after Jane was off in the rickshaw, Darren "Sharpie",arrived fresh from bringing in the year of the Rat in Hong Kong. What a contrast, HK to India.. He to took on the peak hour train experience, a Mumbai must!
Whilst Sharpie was here we were able to finally get to Goa, crazy that is only a 45 minute flight and this was our first time.. We stayed at Candolim Beach at the quiet end of town and did a lot of very little for a few days. Actually as Sharpie described, it was like an English retirement village, and from their accent and array of tattoos on the lads, they were all from the same part of England. Now the beaches of India are nice and the culture is moderate to say the least so it is normal/respectful for the women to keep their tops on.. Well.. not the English ladies and we think some of the Russians.. It was a boobs out blitz. Actually in the ladies defence I think there was a standard set by an older gent, who had a lovely all over leather look with his modesty limited to a leopard print lap. I would call it a lap lap but there wasn't that much fabric..


The beach was well tended by countless beach shacks serving rough tucker and cool beer to your beach bed. What better way to round out a day of sun than to retire to one of the choice shacks with some decent tunes for happy hour!
As luck would have it our good Bombay buddy Ash flew down and joined us for his birthday.
Ash was popular on the beach, the ladies gave hime massages and pedicures and there was also this Indian bloke in white budgie smugglers sipping a tin of Fosters through a straw keeping a watchful eye on him...

We headed up to Baga Beach in the evening to check out the more lively part of Goa, with its many, beach shacks, bars and restaurants. The Goan beaches are busting at the seems, these once quiet now villages packed with tourists, screaming along on rented scooters or walking on the side of the busy rural roads doing their best to navigate their way from shop to beach to restaurant to pub..
Goa has a rich history with links to Roman times and 400 year rule of the Portuguese.
Apart from the many churches we went past, Fort Aguada, a Portuguese installation was the only historic site we explored. From our guest house on the beach it was a nice walk sown the beach to the fort which took us past the rusting hulk of the River Princess, a 240m long ore carrier which went aground off Candolim in a storm in 2000. Each year there are renewed promises to salvage and re float the ship but with mother nature doing her worst, the ship looks like it'll be there quite a while.
As usual the cows take centre stage and these ones looked particularly fresh in the early morning light....

Mumbai living...

Our new neighbours, the road workers, seem to have made the our 6th Road corner their new home. Their works have inched up the street a wee bit which has moved the 3 pumps they are using to dewater the drainage trench right outside our bedroom window. Lovely.. I've never seen one of the workers wear a watch but somehow the pumps fire up at 6.30 each morning before the sun has had a chance to say hello. This is just a bit early for the late night Indian lifestyle. Dinner is still 9-10pm and the feature movie on the tube doesn't come on until 11pm... It's late in the afternoon and I'm having a bit of a tired rant.. But we do have to thank the workers for a few things, the way we see it, the pump that roars non stop from early morn, jolting us from our slumber is a warm up for the sleep deprived days, weeks months that are yet to come. At the insistence of the pump were also given the opportunity to make the most of the morning, heading down to the beach for a walk or challenging our calm to block out the noise with some yoga.

A truck arrived the other day to drop off some backfill for the trenches.. Pavers, large hard objects are not traditionally the best at filling in the small gaps around pipes, but this is India... For those who haven't been here, above is Yardaf our smiley watchman.. This is the fella who gives Noddy, our car, a tub each morning and keeps a vigilant watch over us in the evenings, from under his blanky.. Actually we're certain he is stoned nearly every night.. His English is a limited as our Hindi but we all smile and have a go..

Juhu Beach offers us a place to escape the industrial drone of Mumbai. The only noise to interrupt the sound of the small waves is roar of the flights from the nearby Mumbai airport. We walk past a few nice homes but the one above is one of the choice bungalows on the beach, it's on land a 5 star hotel would be envious of, making it worths equivalent to at least 50 beach front homes on the Gold Coast $$$$... lots a rupees.. Actually Wikipedia touts Juhu to be comparable to the Bel-Air, Malibu and Beverly Hills suburbs of Los Angeles. Hmmmm wonder who wrote that...
Unfortunately the only time you can tell where the horizon is in Mumbai is at sunset... The amazing purple pollution particle sunset we like to call it. There is always a haze of smoke, pollution and dust which hangs in the air which extends beyond the city for 100km. We don't experience the bright blue of the Australian sky but the ladies always brighten the scene with there colourful everyday wear, walking with ease even carrying large loads on there scones.. Oh scones.. I'd love a fresh scone. Actually we had a great Aussie fix the morning between the alarm pump and the sun rising to head to the beach.. HBO was showing Getting Square, an Aussie movie shot on the Gold Coast.

It was great to get a butchers hook at some Aussie humor at 7am, not sure how many Indians would have been watching though...

Move along...

Nothing to see here....

Unless you're a Hopewate fan....

Yes, the victorious Indian "Bravehearts" are all over the news here and all I can do is make fun of an unfortunate digit up bum photo... We did have a thought this morning though. While walking on the beach amongst the many cricket games were a Sikh father and young son. They were playing happily, the boy tapping the ball, the father smiling at his sons achievements. It was at this moment a ball was hit in our direction, Sharon grabbed it, and we looked at eachother... Should we throw it into the sea and make a monkey gesture and say "this one's for Symonds!!" ?
Na.. Shaz tossed it back to the father's hand there'll be time enough for the Aussies in the seasons to come... Although if you read the paper here the balance has shifted to the Indian's favour for ever!!
The media has picture of fans burning flares instead of effigies of Ponting, picture of players mothers kissing photos of their sons, stories of courageous battles fought and won against aggressive play, abusive fans and poor umpiring. In fact they've gone as far as to claim the Test series also, in the face of the umpiring decisions seen as only made against the Indian team.
To make things worse for us, the Indian Under 19 team only a few days earlier claimed the U19 World Cup....
Here's a few of the headlines; Indians Rule the Roos, Smells like team spirit, Having the last laugh... and they go on..
Alright enough about Cricket... Sorry for you Gilly, well done to the Indians for the Tri-Series win.. The Super 14's rugby is on the Australia Network and the NRL and AFL seasons are soon to return. Time to bring back the Biff!!!

Mumbai Derby

Yes Race Fans, the Mumbai, Indian Derby for 2008 has been run and won.. We couldn't get near the bookies for a bet so we had to be satisfied with guessing the winner... Any money on No17 was wasted in the big race as didn't even get 100m around the track, I think the moment must have been a bit much and he was stunned with stage fright..

Fashion on the field took on a whole new look this year as we tried to find the Ex-pat who gave the least consideration with their wardrobe... We reckon it was the bloke in the suit in the pic. At least the bloke in the shorts and singlet was coordinated...

The Bombay beautiful were out to make a show also..
Check out Shaz, Ash, Yogi, Rinki, Karishma and bad boy Ben..

Hard Yakka..

The main road outside our place has been under construction since October '07. This is a bus route and during monsoon it fell apart. The buses had no trouble but the rickshaws and bikes had a hell of a time being thrown over the heaving pavement or dropping into the newly formed potholes.
The local authority has decided to concrete the road and to place some drainage pipes to alleviate the flooding in monsoon. It is so flat in Juhu, the pipes are small and will clog with rubbish and silt very quickly so I fear all the work will be an unfortunate waste. For the time being though, the new roadworks provide quite a few workers and their families employment and shanty housing near the village.

It's hard yakka for the workers who's day starts at the crack of dawn and ends after the sun has set. An excavator breaks the pavement but the labor intensive job of digging a trench is a job for many hands. Loading the dirt into what can only be described as a cooking wok, the workers slowly fill a waiting truck. This continues all day at a steady pace.

The digging around the conduits to finish the trench is a messy business as the trench fills with water turning the trench to mud. A pump roars into action to remove the water, but the hose isn't long enough and soon enough the water is back in the trench.

Slowly, over a matter of a week or so a 30m length of trench takes shape and the timber shoring is installed to make the cramped working conditions a little safer. Only 300m to go...

The work is not the domain of the men. They may be the ones in the trench but the women play their part in the excavation and removal of the dirt from the site. Since the men and the women are working it is only fitting that their children come to the site to be with their family. Yesterday we could hear a baby crying, we look out to see a sheet tied in a tree like the cartoon picture of the stork bringing a new baby to a family. The mother went to the dangling sheet to attend to the crying the baby. Once quiet, the baby is placed back in the sheet and the mother takes her place in the human conveyor.