A bite of the big Apple

BLOG.COM

Surfing the New York blog Gothamist a few days ago, stopping every few minutes to marvel at the magnitude of information available, I wondered when we might have something comparable for Indian cities.

Not just a static, sporadically updated website but a living, breathing resource on the city run by knowledgeable people. (The plural is important. You need a large number of contributors working in shifts on these things; one must assume they have their own personal blogs to run, and perhaps even lives to lead!)

Metro-blogging is a common enough phenomenon in first-world countries. In some ways, regularly updated blogs are ideally equipped to deal with the pace of life in large cities, which are vibrant places with their own distinct pulse and rhythm.

Gothamist (http://www.gothamist.com ) is one of the most comprehensive blogs around. Even if you haven't been to New York, or don't plan a trip there anytime too soon, you might easily get addicted to it.

The site is neatly divided into a number of sections. 'Arts + Events' is especially wide-ranging, as you'd expect it to be given the amount of cultural activity in NYC. 'Food' serves up information on restaurant openings, listings of food and wine events, and other, more offbeat side-dishes (a brandy library, anyone?).

In the 'Interviews' section you get short takes on New Yorkers "" both city-based celebrities and ordinary folk like the owner of the Cherry Bomb Tattoo parlour (who discusses 'book tattooing' with aplomb), or a sidewalk comic-book salesman who plays speed-chess.

'Ask Gothamist' invites questions on topics ranging from an annual cupcake festival to dental insurance to what options are available if one is getting married and needs to take dance classes urgently (which is complemented by an extremely active bulletin board).

Even the 'Weather' section tries to be lively, not always with success ("Clouds, clouds, you disappoint us so. You promise rain but never deliver any. How can we trust you, clouds?"). But that doesn't matter much, since the primary function of this site is to be utilitarian.

All this adds up to is a lot of information, which is why it's good that the site's search facility is user-friendly, with the older material organised into archives searchable by category or date.

A lot of it is in the form of quotidian little nuggets only citizens could care about (Pink Garlic from Auvergne is currently selling for $4.99 for an 11 oz bag at Fairway? Hmm.) but there's also a lot of information that can be useful even if you're not planning a six-month visit to the city.

Incidentally, Gothamist has expanded into a network of blogs that cover 11 cities, including London, Shanghai, San Francisco and Paris "" though the last has only some of the content translated into English. All the sites follow a similar format. We're awaiting Delhiist.com and Mumbaiist.com.

Jai Arjun Singh, aka Jabberwock, blogs at http://jaiarjun. blogspot. com