I met Mihir Manker while flaying my hands wildly at taxis that were whizzing towards Bandra, all occupied by smug solitary passengers. Then one car stopped, a head popped out and said “Bandra?” I have never loved a head more.
Squashed in with three strange men a minute later I thought the best way to go was chatty. "Where are you headed?" I asked. "Going to Bhabha Hospital, thought I'd volunteer." Not the answer I expected, so I prodded a little more. Mihir was coming from a meeting with the Additional Commisioner of Police, Tardeo, asking him if he could be a volunteer with the relief operation teams fanning across the city. The police in typical pandu fashion of course had just taken his contact details, gave him some hearty pats on the back and sent him on his way. So he did the next best thing — gave people stranded like me a lift that night and then stayed till three in the morning helping nurses, hauling gurneys and getting patients to their wards at Bhabha.
May Mihir reproduce like a rabbit and produce many mini-hims.

How do you tell people that you belong to a city even though you haven't lived there the requisite 10, 15 years? When that inevitable question pops up, "Where are you from?", I have to fight the urge to say "Bombay". Not Delhi, not even Mumbai. But Bombay. How do you tell them that the idea of the city is in your soul even as you scatter across its alien landscape anchorless. But you still know you belong and you have never been more sure of anything else. That quiet knowledge that You are where You should be.
So next time I am asked that question, I think I'll say, "from here, but I moved to Bombay a month ago." So they'll think I'm a kook. But that's hardly new.

The 86 year old woman, with whom I share my flat with, is an active little hen

a) She keeps the TV on all night, even if its in the "Khosshhhhh" mode. The volume is set just high enough to be irritating.
b) She keeps getting up to shit in her bed-side potty, strategically placed at her room's entrance. To get to it, she uses a wooden chair like a walker, dragging it in slow-sad-old-woman style. Nails across a wall? I wish.
c) I have lost count of the number of times I have seen her bare ass, when she is occupied thus. My retinas are slightly scorched.
Gaaaah.

I never thought I'd be saying this into a phone. Tersely.
"Bust 34, waist 25 low waist 29 and a half, hips 34" Pause. "Neck 12, pant length 37.5. Arm hole 13, sleeve length 23" For such labours and for getting above-mentioned, attribute-laden model for free, I get to see my name emblazened on a Fashion Photo Feature as Co-ordinator. Hmmm.
And I get to do this every week. see me all atwitter with joy.