The last recollection I have of these small firecrackers is watching my uncle park his scooter with these in the basket in front which he had bought for us. These were good fun all those years ago and are good fun even now though for some years, I lost interest in them and was more into bigger bombs with louder noise. I'd like to sit down with a candle and keep lighting these and throwing them but I guess that is not what I am destined to do, at least for a few years as I have to monitor Manu who is very keen with other fireworks. Maybe when he is old enough to do it unsupervised, I will return to these.

A star is born and it has eclipsed everything else. I was pleased with the lighting I had put on our window and in an attempt to make it even brighter, I thought of adding this star there as well. It didn't worked out as planned since it is so bright that it made everything else look dull and I now fell the window was looking better without it. May be it can be used on it's own at a different spot. Is that what they mean when they say “When in Rome, do as the Romans do?”

Goddess of money—Laxmi is worshipped on Diwali, I don't recall any festival that celebrates the goddess of knowledge Saraswati and today is Vishwakarma day—the day of the architecture of gods who made this whole world and this festival is very pale compared to Diwali. Money does make the world go round. And this is what surprises me the most. When it comes to gods, we have two people holding the same portfolio. Apart from Laxmi, Kuber too is the god of money but there is one distinction, something like the speculator and a long term investor.

I had decided not wish Happy Diwali to anyone but then I thought better of it. The image I have selected is not a conventional image you'd see but I found it appropriate since this is the scale Diwali has been reduced to by the stock market crash.

The tobacco and alcohol companies are not allowed to advertise in papers or on TV, you can be sure of protests by women's liberation group if you say or show something that they feel is showing women in bad light. The extreme to this is the ban on the Cadbury Fruity Gems as authorities felt it is implying that eating gems is as good as eating fresh fruit. The health minister Mr. Ramados wants smoking in the movies to stop and he wants Shahrukh Khan and Amitabh Bachchan to apologise for smoking.

John Travolta was sitting in the Hummer smoking a cigar. Next to him was the politician who was having a problem with the smoke so he said “Do you mind?” John Travolta smiled and said “No. I don't. Do you?” and continued smoking.

Although I don't have any more images of Carlsber lined up, I won't say this is the last image I am posting. Who knows I might be inspired t take some more pictures of the bottle. There are some other images I have lined up, check back tommorow to find more.

Although it would be wrong to compare my situation to a Jew in Nazi Germany but if you think about it, the basic fundamentals are the same. Maharashtra Navnirman Sena has once again beaten up people from North India and this make me uncomfortable while venturing out in the city, specially because I have unmistakable looks of a north Indian and I don't speak Marathi.

Last month I posted an image titled “The last Carlsberg”. It was supposed to be the last image of a Carlsberg bottle. Then, influenced by some images I saw, I decided to experiment with the dark I took some images on the bottle in the dark. I don't have any studio lights and these bottles were backlit by a cheep torch/flashlight. The auto focus was not working properly and I had to switch to manual focus. I might post another similar image tomorrow.

I don't know why but Mira and I do like going to these fair that come up at the Bandra-Kurla Complex. I guess maybe because they remind us of the annual India International Trade Fair we used to visit while we were in Delhi. Unlike the trade fairs in Delhi, these ones are very small and while the Trade fair has a lot of different pavilions you can choose randomly and big open areas where you can sit or maybe enjoy a snack, the fair we have in Bandra and very inconvenient. They are almost like a queue outside a temple, you keep walking in just one direction and at the end of the fair are food stalls and the loo. I will elaborate it further sometime.

On Dussehra I posted a picture of Barley that we had planted in out home. One the religious ceremonies are over, we have to either immerse it in water or put it under a pipal tree. So I emptied the pots that were used to grow the barley and this is what I got— a perfect mud cake, the strands you see here are the roots of barley. Filling up lakes and ponds with sand is not a good idea so I emptied the pots in the garden downstairs and immersed only the barley.

There are certain things that kind of defy logic. This can is an example it is a can of a non-alcoholic beverage by a brewer by the name of Bavaria. I don't know why would they want to make something like this while beer is quite a popular, legal and profitable, I don't know why they would want to write “non-alcoholic” on the can and although I should know this, but I don't know why I bought it. Defies logic. Doesn't it?

“Spitting spreads TB. Please don't spit.” This is the sign you can see at least once a day if you live in Bombay. So we have identified spitting as a potential health risk. Apart from just spitting, there is the pan spit. There are more people chewing tobacco in the form of raw tobacco, khaini or pan masala then there are smokers in our country. Their spit can not only spread TB, it also makes the whole country dirty.

You wave your hand in front of your nose to dispel the smoke of the person standing in front of you at the bus stop. What do you do when you step on the dog poo of your neighbor while climbing stairs of your home in the dark? Dogs are animals so we can think about excusing them, what about the walls of our cities, towns and villages that are used as public toilets. Scale the length and breadth of the country and if you pass any secluded corner or wall, you will have to hold your breath due the smell of urine. While people are urinating everywhere, some are even shitting. Such sights are all too common while traveling by train. Smoking in public places has a fine of 200 bucks what should be the penalty for shitting or peeing in public places. I am sure the health risk posed by this is lot worse than spitting.

On the 2nd of October the Government of India banned smoking in public places which is good news if you are a non smoker. You would know how bad it is going to a restaurant that smell of stale smoke, right? The thing to note here is that the government has not banned the production or the sale of cigarettes but only the consumption of it in public places. The reason behind this is simple, passive smoking is dangerous too and while screwing up your own health by smoking is okay, you wouldn't be allowed to make others sick. So far so good but this raises some others questions too.

Seems like waiting for his shirt to dry so he can put it on and go out. I coule have written something witty but I have been in a meeting for the last 6 hours and am drained right now. See you tommorow.

A few days ago these cardboard 3D glasses came with my morning paper, inserted by Disney channel. It was because they were showing some program in 3D. I thught Manu would be happy to experience 3D but that was not the case. After quitely watching the show for a few minutes he asked me “Dad, when will this be over?” I asked him if he didn't like it and he confirmed.

After macro, another thing I seem to shoot quite a lot are the trees and leaves. This is an almond tree growing in the parking of our building. The leaves turn red before they fall. It is not the time for the leaves to fall, the reason these leaves have turned red is the broken branch on which they are growing. Beauty in Death. Isn't it?

Once Mahishasur had a boon that no man or god would be able to conquer him, he thought of conquering the earth and the heaven. Now the problem is how do you kill such a person? The answer was in Durga-the allied forces. Durga combined the forces of all the gods to fight and eventually kill Mahishasur. I guess taking inspiration from the incident, George Bush is trying to combat the depression in the American Market but he doesn't realise that he is no durga and the $700 billions are no match to the power of gods that Durga had. But I still sincerely wish him success.

On the first day of navratri we plant barley and on the tenth day which is celebrated as Dussehra, the barley sprouts are also worshipped along with the silver coin that is placed on the pan overnight in which we set the curd. The offering to the god on this day is sweet yogurt rice. The rasgulla you see here is Manu's offering. “I want to give this rasgulla to jai jai (god)” and kept it here. Later he went on to decorate the mandir with flowers. I guess this job can be assigned to him for the puja on Diwali. I am sure he will do it very well.

Has anyone ever tried to sell you a bag made of synthetic leather? In India not only you can get “synthetic” leather, you can get a variety of seemingly impossible and contradictory items. Mira bought this from Inorbit mall in Malad where, thankfully, the salesgirl didn't try to pass it off as synthetic leather. Actually it would be wrong to call it a bag as it is very small in size, you can get the idea by looking at the zipper and the seam.

This is the rangoli that was the winner in the competition organised on Sunday. For the past so many years I have been creating on a computer that gives me the option of going back one or more steps or to just discard what I have done and start something new if I am not happy with it. Although in past I have indulged in such medium, it does make me a little uncomfortable thinking about it now.

Five years ago, this day, a few hours earlier than now, I got off Rajdhani Express at the Mumbai Central railway station. That marked the end of one journey and start of another. Today I complete my five years in Bombay.

Although Manu enjoys painting, we decided not to take him for the painting competition organised today. He likes to paint but doesn't draw. I could imagine how upset he would have been during the competition after realising that papa can't draw for him and he gets only one sheet of paper. After the paiting competition, there was a rangoli making competition too.

Ignorance indeed is bliss. While I would dread the thought of singing on a loud speaker, some people, completely unaware of their limitations, are perfectly okay with doing so. Maybe that or they don't give a shit about how awful their voice is. After these ladies “sang” bhajans for a couple of hours, Mira told me that for today the organizer had called in the “professionals”. Just wondering how it would have been with amateurs.

This is a normal sign and the texture you are seeing here is in the glass of the restaurant through which this shot was taken. I have always wondered if a glass with this kid of texture is as strong as the one without it?

Garden has a very different definition in Bombay. The 15X10 feet play area for kids in our building which is lined with tiny pebbles and doesn't have a blade of grass in it is called a garden. Since it is about 2 feet lower than the rest of the surface, we used to call it "Khadda" which means a pit or a hole. What you see in this image is what we actually call a park. Compared to the parks I see here in Bombay, it is huge and takes about 10 minutes of brisk walking to compete one wound around the perimeter. What you are seeing here is a small part of it with slide and swings for kids, on the left is the rest of the park which shares its boundary with a High school and a temple; behind me it shares its boundary with a Gurudwara.