Food Bloggers: The New Influencers

First thing I realised after joining work after almost 2 years was blogging has arrived in India. It was the same client, familiar work profile, but a visibly changed media space.  As a PR professional and out of my liking to try 'new restaurants and food', I started following some food bloggers on Twitter. 

Twitter became the best place to know of a new restaurant and a cafe or latest food trivia. Mainline media was writing about how people have developed their blogs as a source of specialised information, thus generating revenues too. Professional reasons apart, I found myself relating to food differently through these blogs. Born and brought up in Dadar, Aaswad and Godbole stores are not new to me. But Kalyan Karmarkar's blog  of writing about Maharashrian breakfast at Aaswad puts these known things in a different perspective. Nikhil Merchant's pictures give another glimpse of the a culinary journey. On the other hand I met Manisha Talim who lucidly presents the health benefits - be is an Asparagus or a Seafoood Festival. 

No wonder foood blogger have become the new influencers and my door to  culinary wonders - be it new restaurants, new cuisines, trying new recipe, simply planning an evening or even a vacation!

Break ke Baad in Aamchi Mumbai

AI 130 was hovering over Mumbai to land at Chatrapati Shivaji International Airport. As I stepped out of the plane, the swanky new terminal was the first amongst the many changes I noticed in Amchi Mumbai.  


The new terminal, duty free shops were unlike what I had seen a few years ago when I first travelled abroad. But this was short lived as the two helpless scanners tried best to accommodate luggage of the passengers at the customs.  On my way home, I noticed the new construction at City Light theatre was complete, but was promptly told that it’s just a commercial complex with no theatre. One more landmark with many childhood memories has disappeared in the builder-official-politician nexus.

Prices of vegetables, basic food items have inflated

Eating out is too expensive 

The most striking was the sky high prices of fruits, vegetables and daily items. Prices for dozen eggs, a litre of milk, bread and vegetable made me think, perhaps grocery was cheaper or at similar rate in London. Our staple Idli sambar at DP’s now costs Rs 32 while the favourite sabudana wada from Prakash is for Rs 30. So much for the inflation.....  

It was the next day after Dasara, my first festival since my return J, I got a call from my brother ‘you missed ganapati visarjan this year; start walking towards Gokhale Road you will get a glimpse’. Sure I did, it was a long queue of trucks with Devi idols headed towards Dadar Chowpatty. Sign of another festival becoming bigger, louder, commercialised and politicised. This time my usual long drive at night to Marine Drive took another route on my way back – the new Lalbaug fly over. Another subtle and important change was the death of close relatives, friend and acquaintances when I was away, a loss which will never be relived.  

When the terror memories hound you....

As a 12 year old kid one day I was playing near my building, waiting to go with my mother for a relative’s wedding shopping at Dadar market, when she suddenly cancelled the plan. Reason: a neighbour who came from that side informed about a possible bomb blast at the Plaza Theatre. Yes, I did hear some noise, but had thought it to be sound of a firecracker from a wedding at the nearby church. Little did I know that ‘firecracker sound’ in 1993 will become a regular pattern in my life as I grow up in this buzzing city called Mumbai.

Yesterday again the terror struck at my backyard as I watched images of the very area I live in been cordoned off as a bomb exploded on the roof of a bus stop. The live streaming was showing the damaged bus stop in front of the school that my brother studied in, the foot path I have walked on umpteen numbers of times, the familiar Hanuman Temple, the Jesus Cross and the hardware shop that was damaged. It was the same time my mother returns from work and walks the very same foot path to buy vegetables. As I spoke to my father we both were relieved that the school children were safe. Mother was sad to know that old woman from whom she occasionally bought fruits lost her life.

Following the blast updates from my university library in London, I felt as if there is a set time table to blow Mumbai every two years. In 2005 I was returning home from work when I saw unusual traffic jam when a fellow passenger informed about bomb blasts in Mumbai local trains. A year earlier I had covered the bomb blast in a bus at Ghatkopar as one of my early experiences as a newspaper reporter. The Zaveri Bazaar and Gateway blasts followed with a horrific terror attack in November 2008. The terror attack, like 2005 floods, will never be forgotten by anyone. In fact most of the Mumbai citizens by now have some dark memory of riots; bomb blast, terror attacks, floods, and god know what is going to follow.

The famed ‘Spirit of Mumbai’ manifested its online avatar minutes after the blasts. Facebook and Twitter were flooded with initiatives to help people – a car lift towards suburbs, offer to host those stranded, phone numbers and addresses of nearby doctors or hospitals been shared or re-tweeted. This rubbished the cynicism of some who question this habbit of sharing helpline numbers on the internet. This same spirit has made us Mumbaikars strong and resilient. But I am not sure how much stronger can we be or should be as ‘the city gets back to normal a day after’.