The Garland Vendor

This woman is selling flower garlands at Seven Bunglows area in Andheri. The flower garlands are used for worship and many women also use them to adorn their hair.

Shady Lane

This is just another shady lane in Mumbai. It connects the Four Bungalows market to Seven Bungalows area in Andheri.

Inside Palm Beach Galleria

A view of the Palm Beach Galleria from inside.

MAX Retail In Navi Mumbai

MAX comes to Navi Mumbai.

Lifestyle International, the retail chain of stores owned by Landmark, the Dubai-based retail group has launched its value retail store 'MAX' at Palm Beach Galleria in Navi Mumbai. MAX Retail sell a vast range of items including apparel, accessories, footwear and gift items.

Palm Beach Galleria

The Palm Beach Galleria is the newly opened 2.5 lakh sq. ft. shopping mall in Vashi, conveniently located right off the highway.

The first ever Espirit ( the leading brand for fashion timewear) corner for watches and accessories in Mumbai, which is also the first in Asia has been opened here.The Espirit Island (as this new concept corner is called) promises to give the customer the ultimate shopping experience with the widest chioce of Espirit timewear, jewellery and sunglasses under one roof. Townies will have to travel to Navi Mumbai to shop at Espirit Island.

The mall boasts of McDonalds fast food, Odyssey (a store for books, toys, CDs, DVD's), MAX Retail of the $1-billion Landmark Group(Dubai), Adlabs movie theatre and many other brands.

Gola Wala

The gola wala is a pleasant sight to see in the scorching summer heat. Gola is 'ice slush' on a wooden gola stick. The gola wala pushes the gola stick into the crushed ice ball, pours the syrup generously, with a dash of lime, and sprinkles some masala. The most popular flavour is kala-khatta, made from the fruit 'jamun' or Indian blackberry. The colourful bottles of syrup on the cart surely tempt you to stop by and slurrp one.
The gola is yummy and refreshing and quenches your thirst but one cannot be sure of quality of the syrup and the water (from which ice is made). There are outlets where you can get good quality syrup with gola ice made of mineral water too.

Central Water Tower

The two water towers opposite Sanpada station(East) are a part of the central water tower system in Navi Mumbai. You will see such water towers in many places in Navi Mumbai.

Fun Square At Sanpada

The Fun Square is a 'digital movie theatre' at Sanpada railway station. It is more like a mini theatre, having two halls with seating capacities of about 100 and 50 respectively.

The theatre has comfortable seats but the screen is small. Its more like the Gem and Grace mini theatres at the G7 Multiplex in Bandra(popularly known as Gaiety-Galaxy theatres).But for Rs. 50 a ticket, and enhanced digital quality, could one ask for more?

Sanpada Station Complex

The Sanpada Station Complex has the subway and the railway station built within. The complex houses a mini theatre Fun Square, and two restaurants and many spaces for commercial purposes.
Unlike Mumbai, most Navi Mumbai stations look more like commercial complexes than railway stations. The Belapur railway station boasts of a helipad and helicopter service, making Belapur Station Complex accessible by air too.

Near Vashi Station

This is another view of the BSEL Tech Park opposite Vashi Station Complex. The building on the extreme right is the first mall of Navi Mumbai, Center One. The flyover you see is a part of the 9 km Palm Beach Road that connects Belapur and Vashi in Navi Mumbai.

Sanpada Railway Station

Sanpada township(which is on the east side) of the station can be accessed from this subway built under the railway station, within the Sanpada station complex.
One side is for passengers going to the railway platforms up the stairs and also people crossing over from Sanpada(East) to the other side [Sanpada(West)] and the other side, for vehicles to cross over to the other side. The subway descends as you enter it from either side (east or west). The roof of the subway also descends, so it is suitable for light vehicles only. Heavy vehicles enter Sanpada from the entry near Turbhe.

This subway was full of flood waters (neck deep) on the 26th July, 2005, and Sanpada was inaccessible till the next morning.

CST (VT Station)

This is the Chhatrapati Shivaji Terminus (commonly known as Victoria Terminus or VT Station) at 5 pm in the evening, when the office crowd begins to rush to the station.

Fruit Sellers At Sanpada Station

These are fruit sellers at Sanpada station carrying baskets of fresh fruit from Mumbai's wholesale fruit market in Vashi. Sanpada is the nearest station for the wholesale fruit and vegetable markets, and the Agriculture Produce Market in Navi Mumbai.
The wholesale vegetable and fruit markets were shifted from Mumbai to Vashi in early 1996. Many small fruit sellers across the city ( Mumbai and Navi Mumbai) come here and buy large quantities (one to 5 baskets) of seasonal fruit and sell it in local markets or along the roadside in the city for a daily living.

BSEL TECH Park At Vashi

BSEL Tech park is an infotech realm and highly sophisticated state of the art facility with an elegant ambience which embraces IT and ITES hubs.BSEL Tech Park is a monumental landmark of Navi Mumbai due to its location, strategically right opposite the Vashi Railway Station, built to cater to the needs of Multi Nationals and large corporate houses.

Silhouette

The Late Shri N.K.Soundararajan has clicked this photo of his little daughter in the mid 50's with a Reflekta camera. The Reflekta was new then.
The little girl in the photo is my sister's mother-in-law. We call her Amma. She shared some family photos with us when we went to Chennai recently to be with her, when she lost her younger son, Krishna. I loved this one that her father had named 'Silhouette' and Amma was glad to know that people from all over the world would see the photo on MDS. The photo is old but there's something about it.

Amma has always been proud of her father, who was a man of great wisdom with strong values, and yet modern and open to new thoughts. I had the opportunity to meet the man at my sister's wedding and was greatly influenced by his words. Amma is a reflection of her father and my sister couldn't have got a better mom-in-law.

International Infotech Park & Vashi Station

The large and spacious Vashi Railway Station was built into and under the International Infotech Park, to ISO 9002 quality standards.It is one of the top 10 Info Parks in India. Constructed over Vashi railway station, seven broad white towers form the International Infotech Park(IIP), a massive office complex developed by CIDCO for the purpose of supporting the information technology industry in Vashi.IIP features over 600,000 square feet of built-up space. Iris Business Services, 3i Infotech, Tracmail, Satyam, Patni and Sify are among the companies who have set up offices here.Situated right above the station, it is geographically convenient as it reduces employees' travel time. Other means of public transport are also available from the park. The upcoming Navi Mumbai International airport will be at a distance of 8 kms from the park.

Utsav Chowk at Kharghar

The picturesque Utsav Chowk built in Greek-Roman style, is a major landmark at Kharghar in Navi Mumbai.
Kharghar is one of the 14 nodes of Navi Mumbai.
Kharghar is a nature lovers' delight, having loads of open space and greenery everywhere. A gargantuan fountain adorns the area, a stroll in the evening refreshes you, and the waterfall at Pandavkhada is heaven for picnic lovers and is visited by people from all over Mumbai in the rainy season.The upcoming Navi Mumbai International airport is 4kms away from Kharghar. Kharghar boasts of number of ready and under-construction projects both in the commercial and residential segments.

Millenium Towers Complex

Millenium Towers Complex at Sanpada in Navi Mumbai, built by CIDCO is
one of the second biggest residential project by CIDCO after NRI
Seawoods Complex.
The first three 14-storeyed towers were built with ultra-modern and
innovative French, German and Chinese material handling and
construction techniques adopted by B.G. Shirke Construction Technology
Ltd, Pune in a short span of 22 months.The French construction technique called Tunnel Form (TF) has been adopted for this project.

Navi Mumbai

Conceived in the 1970's, Navi Mumbai was seen as an alternate urban settlement on the mainland that would remain accessible to the island city. It would be the new twin city designed within the Bombay Metropolitan region to facilitate the decongestion of Bombay (now Mumbai).
CIDCO was formed in 1971 for planning, development and maintenance of
the city.
The city boasts of Reliance Infocomm's Dhirubhai Ambani Knowledge City
and many IT companies like Wipro Ltd., Tata Consultancy Service and
ICICI Infotech.
The well-planned transportation network consisting of Road, Rail and
Waterway systems makes Navi Mumbai easily accessible from all parts of
the country. The proposed Domestic cum International Airport is
envisaged to further enhance this accessibility.

Pre-Schooler

Our little toddler has joined pre-school. This was his first day at school.
Its great to be his mom. There's times when I lose my temper and about to yell at him, and he starts shaking his body to the music on MTV like a pro dancer. And we burst out laughing, forgetting all about his mischevious acts.