Tag Archives: blogging

Revisiting an old hotel in Bombay’s Colaba district

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ALMOST EXACTLY TWO years ago (in December 2023), we spent a few nights in the Moti International hotel in a street leading off Bombay’s bustling Colaba Causeway. Despite its impressive sounding name, this hotel was curiously interesting.

It is housed in Moti Mansion, a large house built by a Parsi family in about 1900.

Moti Mansion in November 2025

We had not booked the hotel in advance, but walked in to enquire whether we could stay fir a few nights. The young man at the small reception desk asked us:
“Are you married?”

We told him that we were and then he said:
“I have to ask you because, you see, my grandfather who lives with us on the top floors, is an old fashioned orthodox Hindu.”

Our ground floor room was adequate, air-conditioned,and had a decent attached bathroom. Sadly, the windows had been painted over. So there was no daylight. When we asked for a kettle, the young man explained:
“Yes, but I must charge you an extra 100 rupees for three days of electricity.”
We were happy with that.

On our last morning, we met the boy’s mother. She showed us the buildings impressive main wooden staircase. She explained that many of the rooms in the building were occupied by long-stay guests.

Today, 19 November 2025, we walked past Moti Mansion. Its street facing facade wast partly hidden by scaffolding and almost all the windows were covered over with wooden boarding.

I wonder what the future holds for this charming edifice.

Views from the top of a building in Bangalore

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Just before leaving Bangalore (for Bombay), my friend Mansoor Ali took me to see the BLR Design Centre. It is located on the top floors of a building on the corner of Church Street and Museum Road, and is a fine example of good modern design.

According to the centre’s website, the institution is:
“A collaborative workspace focussed on transforming urban living environments through architectural partnerships, cultural dialogue and design-driven solutions.”

The views from the centre’s roof terrace are wonderful. What particularly intrigued me were the reflections of buildings that can be seen on the glasswork of the Sobha Mall, which is across the street from the BLR Design Centre.

A toilet suspended above the waters of the Arabian Sea in Bombay

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THE IMPRESSIVE GATEWAY  of India stands on a short promontory surrounded on three sides by the water of the Arabian Sea.  The sea surrounding the Gateway is crowded with small, colourful vessels. Seeing  one of these craft reminded me of a story told to me by a friend many years ago.

 

In Bombay

My friend had just returned from Kenya. During his stay there he spent several days at sea on a local trading ship. It was a very basic vessel.  He told me that he could not find a toilet on board. Eventually,  he could no longer resist the urge, and asked the crew where he could relieve himself. He was directed to the rear of the vessel and shown a toilet seat that was suspended from it over the waters below. With some difficulty he managed to sit on the swinging toilet seat, and to his great embarrassment, the entire crew came to the back of the ship to watch him in action.

 

That really happened a long time ago.  Today, 17 November 2025, while visiting the Gateway of India,  I spotted a small boat. Projecting from its rear and hanging over the water, there was a small, square based cubicle with a door. On the door,  there was the word “TOILET”. Seeing this reminded me of my friend’s story. Users of this cabin are shielded from sight, unlike that swinging loo seat on the Kenyan boat.

An artist who expanded the art of playing cards

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GANJIFA IS A traditional art of decorating playing-cards. Ganjifa cards originated in Persia and spread to India. They can be rectangular but are often circular. Traditionally,  the Indian cards were decorated with scenes from the Ramayana.

 

By Raghupati Bhat

In the 1980s, Indian artist Raghupati Bhat revived the Mysore tradition of ganjifa painting. The Victoria and Albert Museum in London has a set of his ganjifa cards. Images of these are projected on a wall of Kaash Space,  a gallery in Bangalore’s Berlie Street.  They form part of a superb exhibition of later works by Bhat, all of which are developments of his earlier ganjifa artworks.

 

Raghupati Bhat’s drawings and paintings depict  mythological stories from the Ramayana.  All of them are exquisitely executed and filled with minute details. A set of four painted miniatures are painted with dyes made from natural products, using single hairs from paint brushes to achieve the great detailing within them. In many of his line drawings, Bhat included delicate, beautiful ‘doodles’ in addition to the pictures’ main subjects. All in all, the exhibition includes a fine selection of the artist’s intricately executed creative interpretations of episodes and  characters in the Ramayana.

 

In addition to Bhat’s works, the exhibition includes three other artists’ works: some photographs, some paintings, and two beautiful inlaid wood panels. These other artists’ works were inspired by those of Raghupati Bhat.

 

This wonderful exhibition continues until 21 December 2025, and should not be missed if you happen to be in Bangalore.

Bricks and design at an art school in Bangalore (Bengaluru)

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THE HUMBLE BRICK is a much used material in the construction of many kinds of building. It can be used unimaginatively, as it often is, or imaginatively to create visually intriguing textures.

 

During a visit to one of Bangalore’s art schools,  the Chitrakala Parishath,  we watched architecture students participating in an outdoor “brick techtonics” workshop. This was being supervised by the noted Indonesian architect Andy Rahman.

 

We watched small groups of students arranging bricks so as to make interesting patterns, following plans drawn up by Andy Rahman. As they worked, Mr Rahman moved from group to group, discussing with them what they were doing.

 

All around the area where the workshop was taking place, labourers were working noisily on a construction site where new buildings were being built for the art school. Thus, the architects working on realising theoretical bricklaying design ideas were surrounded by real life applications of established building practices.

 

I hope that when the budding architecture students begin designing ‘for real’ that they will recall the interesting brickwork creativity that Mr Rahman was introducing to them. For he was showing them that even the humble brick can become a component in a visually fascinating design.

Problems with identifying gender in London and Bangalore (Bengaluru)

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WHEN OUR DAUGHTER was about two years old and able to walk unassisted, she often wore overalls (jump suits), rather than girlish frocks. One day we were walking in London’s Kensington Gardens when we passed a couple of elderly ladies.  One of them looked at our child, and said to us: “What a cute little boy you have”

We replied:

“Actuually, she is our daughter.”

To which one of the ladies said to her friend: “it’s so difficult to tell one from the other these days.”

 

The former Men’s Bar at the Bangalore Club

Some months later, we were in India at the Bangalore Club (in Bangalore). In those days, the late 1990s, the club had a Men’s Bar, to which only men were admitted. Its wood panelled walls bear hunting trophies and archaic weapons.

One day, I was having a drink in that bar with my father-in-law, when our daughter arrived in the adjoining room with my wife. Excited to see us, our daughter,  dressed in her overalls, dashed into the Men’s Bar. An elderly gentleman, seeing a child in the bar, said to our daughter:

“You are too young to come in, young man. When you are 21, you will be welcome here.”

To which, my wife standing close to the entrance, said: “She’s our daughter.”

The gentleman then responded: “In that case, you will never be able to enter our bar”.

 How wrong he was.

Sometime during the early twenty-first century, the rules changed: now both men and women can use what had been the Men’s Bar.  Now, this bar has been renamed: it is simply The Bar.

Today, almost 28 years later, nobody would have any difficulty identifying our daughter as a young lady.

Getting fixed in Bangalore (Bengaluru), India

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KALIM REPAIRS JEWELLERY in Jewellers Street in the Commercial Street district of Bangalore (Bengaluru). He sits on the pavement on the shaded east side of the street in the morning and in the afternoon,  he moves to the west side to keep out of the sun. He can mend almost every kind of jewellery. When restringing necklaces, he uses both his hands and his feet, to keep the thread taut.

 

Kalim at work

Kalim is one of many people we visit in the Commercial Street area to get repairs done. These craftsmen include tailors, a bag repairer, dyers, darners, watch repairers, locksmiths, and jewellers. We have known all of them for years.

 

The great thing about these skilled workers is that they will skilfully repair almost anything. On the UK,  people like this are few and far between.

 

You can read about these wonderful people in and around Commercial Street in my book “88 DAYS IN INDIA: A JOURNEY OF MEMORY AND DISCOVERY”.

The book is available from Amazon https://www.amazon.co.uk/88-DAYS-INDIA-JOURNEY-DISCOVERY/dp/B0FKTFBFM2/

A Hindu temple that incorporates a banyan tree

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ON THE CAMPUS of Bangalore’s Chitrakala Parishath art college, there is a small Hindu mandir, the Ganapathi Temple. Dedicated in 1984 and built by Mandelia Parmarth Rosh, it contains an effigy of Ganesh and not much else.

What makes this small religious building both fascinating and charming is that its construction incorporates branches of a large, living banyan tree. The tree is growing through part of the temple.