Saturday, March 11, 2006

Bombay street vendor Anna!

Yesterday, I briefly talked about street artists. Here's a story on/in Mid-Day about a street vendor Anna who makes money serving chai at night on the streets of Mumbai, and his interesting interactions with his customers. It's a very nice little piece illustrating once again that there are people out there who work very hard and innovatively at making a living (while others spend their time surfing on a computer and complaining about how there's nothing interesting out there! Heh! Heh!). We do see and know a lot of these people. And their stories are inspirational in their own ways.

I do visit Mid-day's website almost everyday. I guess because it gives me access to happenings in and around Bombay city and its suburbs. And also because it believes in good investigative journalism whereby all parties involved in a story are given the opportunity to put in their point of view (if they wish to). And some of Mid-day's columnists are really very good. Definitely a daily newspaper with some integrity.

Apart from their investigative journalistic stories, they also have interesting (and I suspect sometimes unintentionally funny) stories with slightly misleading headlines on their website. Sample this one titled "Tiger attacks man", and maybe you'll start to understand some of the content on Mid-day. Somehow, its captivating and interesting, and funny all at the same time. Makes for great timepass, that great Indian passtime.

Although, I do wish that they could provode a direct obvious link for the daily "Mid-day mate" on their website. Bombayites (Mumbaikars), you know what I'm talking about!:)

5 comments:

MYV said...

ever since I read your blog about Anna, Every time I make a cup of tea for myself I think about him and how nice it would be to have someone bring me a cup of warm, sweet tea.

Venky said...

neat story - reminds me of the chaiwala @Satyam circle in Vashi who would provide company and more ... aah - all those carefree and mindless banters man! dropping each other all the way home :D and talking about love, sex, education and everyting in between!

and oh, amen to the mid-day mate! and to the the quick-n-easy crosswords - and of course to the whopper mid-day annual with all the goodies!
-Venky.

Anonymous said...

Is there a non-direct non-obvious path to get there? :)

PS- I love chalomumbai.com, too.. and one thing I love most about it yes.. I say this in shame.. I read it .. It's the Agony Aunt section. Shows me the real life there, the daily problems people're facing there, and yes.. most of the true depravity.

- Aparna

Sarat said...

I thought I could get to it back when Mid-Day was available through chalomumbai site.

Agony Aunt columns are fantastic. You should also try Mumbai Mirror for their news and their Agony Aunt / Uncle / God column.

Depravity Zindabad!

Ketaki said...

Hmm, "Anna's 3 NRIs from Bahrain"...That's interesting..I grew up there and it excites me to see the mention of the place in the well-written article.