Category Archives: Matunga

Red Nails and Funerals

A friend’s father died a couple of weeks ago. That Sunday morning, the dead-body / corpse, once a living Mr. D, was to be taken to the Sion crematorium from his house in Matunga. I went to offer my condolences and to be around in case my friend needed any help. There were quite a […]

July 29, 2014 – 12:36 pm | By Bhavin Jankharia | Posted in Matunga, Social Commentary | Tagged , | Comments (9)

Kabira in Matunga

Thursday night, while “Tum Hi Ho” was being belted out, I shot a short video and posted it on our college WhatsApp group. One friend wrote back asking, “Who is he?” I then forwarded the same video to another school-friends group to have yet another friend pose the same question. Guys come on! We need […]

February 16, 2014 – 12:36 am | By Bhavin Jankharia | Posted in Matunga, Mumbai Mirror Column | Comments (6)

Coping with Tragedy

On Wednesday, all the front pages carried a story of the murder-suicide of a family of four at Bhakti Park in Wadala. Apparently, there was a dispute regarding the apartment, and the debt-ridden father killed his wife, his two sons and then himsel When I came home that evening, my children pulled me into their […]

March 22, 2013 – 2:25 pm | By Bhavin Jankharia | Posted in Matunga, Mumbai Mirror Column, School - Don Bosco | Tagged , , | Comments (17)

Lost in the Mist of Time

Google Maps has changed the way we look at our surroundings. This struck me a few months ago, when I was in Bhubaneshwar. I was tracking the route to the hotel on Maps and happened to mention to my hosts how wide and clean Bidyut Marg was. They looked at me puzzled. I showed them […]

March 9, 2013 – 3:14 am | By Bhavin Jankharia | Posted in Matunga, Mumbai Mirror Column | Comments (16)

Something About Nothing (…and A Little for All)

I thought only actors got typecast! After last week’s piece “The Namoral Dilemma”, I received emails, SMSes, blog comments and calls asking why I had written a political piece and deviated from my usual focus on to day-to-day life in Matunga and Mumbai. Seriously! There is a top 5 list of “reasons to hate marathon […]

February 15, 2013 – 10:39 pm | By Bhavin Jankharia | Posted in General, Matunga, Mumbai Mirror Column, Peeves & Rants, Running & Fitness | Comments (7)

Matunga…in 4 Hours

Finally, last Sunday, about 10 of us in a motley group, did a four hours Matunga precinct walk! The back-story! I did a piece in this column in late October on the history of Matunga and what a possible heritage walk might include. Jehangir challenged me to arrange such a walk and we fixed 23 […]

December 28, 2012 – 2:47 pm | By Bhavin Jankharia | Posted in General, Matunga, Mumbai Mirror Column | Comments (15)

Matunga Convergences, Coincidences and Walks

Multiple incidents this week have almost made me start believing in divine intervention and coincidences (I believe in neither!) and made me write this piece rather than the one on Starbucks and Horniman Circle that I had planned earlier. After checking out Starbucks last Saturday morning (bad caramel machiato, bad service, great decor), I met […]

October 26, 2012 – 1:18 pm | By Bhavin Jankharia | Posted in Matunga, Mumbai Mirror Column | Comments (25)

Dog Spas, Tattoo Shops…What Next!

King’s Circle has more than 5 salons…but no spa. You can get shampoos and haircuts and manicures and pedicures, but no ‘spa experience”. And since we are a “middle-class” locality, we don’t even have one of those “ladies” parlors in one of the “quiet” streets. And yet…your dogs and cats…can get a spa experience…in Matunga! […]

October 19, 2012 – 2:35 pm | By Bhavin Jankharia | Posted in Matunga, Mumbai Mirror Column, The Funnies | Comments (8)

A Pillar of Matunga…Lost Forever

During the early “Matunga” days of this column, I used to discuss the “Four Pillars of Matunga”. For South Indians, these were/are Giri Stores, Mysore Concerns, Nalli Silk Stores and Anand Bhuvan. For Gujjus and Kutchhis, these were/are, Garnish/Classic, Anand Bhuvan/Udipi/Madras Cafe, Chheda Stores and Pramanik/Milap. Matunga is still a hotch-potch of cultures, though the […]

September 21, 2012 – 2:24 pm | By Bhavin Jankharia | Posted in Matunga, Mumbai Mirror Column | Comments (16)

Cream Circle

Voltaire once said, “ice-cream is exquisite. What a pity it isn’t illegal”. For me, ice-cream is one of those things that would make life incomplete, if it didn’t exist. I remember as a kid, my Mom making ice-cream at home using a manual churning machine that was packed on the outside with salt and ice. […]

August 24, 2012 – 11:54 am | By Bhavin Jankharia | Posted in Food, Matunga, Mumbai Mirror Column | Comments (20)