After longish 3 months stay with my son in Bay Area, it was back to Mumbai. Its really HOT here! After bracing 20 C in Sunnyvale,Mumbai's sweltering 30 C was really painful,life sapping ordeal. Today friends had planned to meet in Club. After 3 months of respectful 'Uncle" treatment,it was real pleasure to be with friends. Beer never tasted so refreshing and good. It was time to catch up.Though we were in constant touch thro phone,emails and chats, nothing surpasses get together and chat with friends. In months nothing changes as such but one expects that things would have changed for better during your absence. No such luck!!. Same Crazy,unregulated traffic,Eunuchs and Fruit sellers at Traffic lights,same chaos and Bheed everywhere. Ill have to start getting back to routine. Drive as one has to in Mumbai.

Amit Varma's first book has been published.Though we dont know each other, his blog on Tsunami got me hooked to this wonderful world of Blogs. i will remain indebted to him for this.I have missed his visit to Crossroad in Juhu to promote his Book which has received good reviews and i think i will buy it on my next visit to Crossroad.

Talk with friends these days is dominated by latest affliction suffered by Mumbai suburbs. "Redevelopment". Though the buildings are not even 30 yrs old,their prime location between Bandra and Andheri has made them prime target for redevelopment. So the talk with Builder is "on",then 'Off'. Started again as market in Real Estate has revived.so on and on. Funnily the cost of construction is suppose to be Rs.1000/- PSF. and Market rate for flat is Rs.15000/- psf, so the builder cant pay out even 2-3 residents if they are unwilling to join. It exceeds the entire project cost!! Everyone wants to join in and wants new,bigger house,no maintenance charges with nice corpus. But no one is sure when they will get the possession and how long they may have to stay in rented apartment. If builder runs away then what? For every completed project there are 4 incomplete projects with building demolished and owners staying in rented houses for years. Legal remedy is costly one in these cases. New problems on daily basis for Aam Aadmi.--PK