The Songbird on my Shoulder

A collection of short spurts of thought which result in the funny, thought-provoking, poignant worldview of a Madam who lives in Pune, India - the Oxford of the East, the Home of the Shrewsbury Biscuit, and the road-accident fatality-and-brain-damage capital of the world.

Showing posts with label Bombay. Show all posts

Friday, August 5, 2016

Monsoon Country 2

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On a day like this, I feel grateful that I don’t live in Bombay anymore. Fifteen consecutive Bombay monsoons cured me of the concept that r...

Saturday, April 17, 2010

Hill Road

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Heaps of cotton clothes Fixed price, white-hot in noon sun, Hill Road , I miss you! // when can I go again?

Monday, February 20, 2006

Bridget rides again

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Sitting comfortably in back seat when ghastly screeching and lurching. Self thrown up in air. Moments of slow-motion lucidity observing sel...

Sunday, November 13, 2005

Bombay Clichés at Kamalnayan Bajaj Art Gallery

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Kamalnayan Bajaj Art Gallery is a pristine space – beautifully maintained and managed. As someone without training or experience or even a...

Tuesday, April 19, 2005

Communities, Mumbai

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“Table join-madi,” I requested, delighting the Chembur roadside restaurant waiter with my fluent Kannada, and he hovered around for more, e...

Thursday, February 27, 2003

Crawford Market

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For a few weeks each year, mangoes hit the ceiling at Crawford Market. Higher and higher they pile, their prices swinging in inverse propo...

Friday, May 25, 2001

Lovely short pants for madam

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“Poora Bombay mein AC lagne wala hai!” and he swept his arms in a huge circle to demonstrate, wriggling his eyebrows and wagging his head k...

Tuesday, January 27, 1998

Big city, small city

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A few years after I first came to live in my little shaded neighbourhood in Pune, still exulting in the sandpit and flowering trees and com...

Monday, August 28, 1995

Monsoon country

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She was looking for a good place to spend a few weeks writing her poetry. So, of course, I suggested Bombay. After all, the rains were due ...

Saturday, February 27, 1993

Home out of range

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If you lived, say, in Los Angeles, and commuted to work, the most relaxing part of your day would be the journey home. Commuting, Los Ange...

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About Me

Saaz Aggarwal: Saaz Aggarwal was born in Bombay on 5 October 1961, so close to Chowpatty Beach that to set sail and embark on a long voyage right away, all she had to do was cross the road. Just as well she didn’t, though, because a motion disorder that caused violent retching even while watching movies shot with a hand-held camera manifested (shortly after the discovery of the hand-held camera). At The Lawrence School, Lovedale, she was dull, unmotivated and an ideal illustration of Newton’s First Law (which states that a body continues to be in a state of rest or uniform motion unless compelled by an external force to change that state). It was further a period when her bushy (and rather splendid) single eyebrow required extensive maintenance with a pair of garden shears. In 1998, the same year in which she was awarded a ‘Best Mumma Ever’ cup as birthday present, Brown Critique, an eminent poetry journal, described her as ‘a well-known Mumbai-based editor and columnist who lives in Pune’ which prompted her to rush about telling people that she was ‘well known’. This blog documents her life as a Madam.

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