Today is May 1, a public holiday, in celebration of May Day, Labour Day or International Workers’ Day. It has a special significance for India and especially for the western state of Maharashtra of which Mumbai (then Bombay) is the capital. On this day, in 1960, a little over a hundred people sacrificed their lives during protests for the formation of a separate Marathi-speaking state of Maharashtra with Mumbai as its capital. Marathi is the official language of the state and one of the twenty-three official languages of India. For this reason May 1 is also celebrated as Maharashtra Day. “Maha” means great, “Rashtra” means “nation” or “land,” hence great nation.
The formation of the state was part of the reorganisation of states under Nehru, independent India’s first prime minister after the British left. Maharashtra is the second most populous and third largest state as well as the richest, a distinction it owes to Mumbai which is the financial, industrial, commercial, and entertainment capital of the country. The city of everyone’s dreams, and not a few nightmares, pays maximum taxes to the central, or federal, government. In return for its generosity, Mumbai gets back very little, as evident from its poor infrastructure. But things have been improving, gradually, since the turn of the century. We have a new cable-stay sea bridge linking the old city and the suburbs—our very own Golden Gate, the country’s first monorail system, and a four-line metro rail of which Line 1 has been in the making for a few years now. It cuts right through my suburb. I won't be taking it as my commute to and from work is perpendicular.
I was born in Bombay and live in Mumbai, which is the same thing, and I thought I should tell you something about my city.
Meanwhile, this and next week I've lined up a few reviews of books and short stories I finished reading by April 30. Immediately coming up is a review of a vintage mystery, a short fiction, for forgotten books at Patti’s blog, Friday. I hope I do justice to it as I couldn't get used to the lingo spoken by one of the characters.
Posting from home has become a bit of a problem since I got rid of our desktop PC a couple of years ago. I’m not comfortable with a laptop. I can use it to surf and read, download books, comment on blogs, check emails, book tickets, and that sort of thing. What I can’t do as well as I can on a regular computer is type out a lengthy post or an article with two fingers (as I do) and scroll (with my forefinger). I still need the keyboard and mouse. So now I keep the laptop a little distance away, the keyboard right in front of me, and the mouse on my right—the desktop-laptop has made things easier.
The formation of the state was part of the reorganisation of states under Nehru, independent India’s first prime minister after the British left. Maharashtra is the second most populous and third largest state as well as the richest, a distinction it owes to Mumbai which is the financial, industrial, commercial, and entertainment capital of the country. The city of everyone’s dreams, and not a few nightmares, pays maximum taxes to the central, or federal, government. In return for its generosity, Mumbai gets back very little, as evident from its poor infrastructure. But things have been improving, gradually, since the turn of the century. We have a new cable-stay sea bridge linking the old city and the suburbs—our very own Golden Gate, the country’s first monorail system, and a four-line metro rail of which Line 1 has been in the making for a few years now. It cuts right through my suburb. I won't be taking it as my commute to and from work is perpendicular.
I was born in Bombay and live in Mumbai, which is the same thing, and I thought I should tell you something about my city.
Meanwhile, this and next week I've lined up a few reviews of books and short stories I finished reading by April 30. Immediately coming up is a review of a vintage mystery, a short fiction, for forgotten books at Patti’s blog, Friday. I hope I do justice to it as I couldn't get used to the lingo spoken by one of the characters.
Posting from home has become a bit of a problem since I got rid of our desktop PC a couple of years ago. I’m not comfortable with a laptop. I can use it to surf and read, download books, comment on blogs, check emails, book tickets, and that sort of thing. What I can’t do as well as I can on a regular computer is type out a lengthy post or an article with two fingers (as I do) and scroll (with my forefinger). I still need the keyboard and mouse. So now I keep the laptop a little distance away, the keyboard right in front of me, and the mouse on my right—the desktop-laptop has made things easier.
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