Maxximum City - II

Airtel Ahoy!!! Finally after having been in the city for a couple of days, I finally spotted an Airtel board. However the signal still eludes me most of the time. Interestingly, I just got the idea of having a look at where exactly are Airtel's subscribers in Mumbai located, I am sure I wouldn’t find any near Santacruz.

Ok, now all the Dilliwaalas here is a warning for all of you before you come down to Mumbai. Somehow, all the Bombaywallas think that we Dilliwaalas don’t like this city and remain biased towards our own. And to be honest, it is true to some extent, some of us proud Dilliwalas are a bit too snobby to even acknowledge the existence of world outside of NCR.

However speaking for myself, I loved the place. Agreed, that the city is no match for the wide boulevards of Rajpath or the luxury of the HUGE malls at Saket, but come on the place has its own merits and there are more reasons for loving the place than not. And forgive me for harping on the old theme again and again, but the Auto and Taxiwallahs of this place have totally won me over. I mean a couple of Autowallahs who probably didn’t want to go to my destination were almost apologetic about it. And I couldn’t imagine for the life of me, that I would get in a taxi, reach my destination and pay 14 bucks. The Bombay auto and taxiwallahs have spoiled me and I am not sure how would I manage with the Delhi autowallahs if and when I am there.

Moving on from my obsession with the autowallahs, the week here was spent here (other than going through the induction) doing the touristy stuff. After all how can someone who has read Shantaram give Haaji Ali a miss (though one shouldn’t have missed Dharavi, but honestly I wasn’t going to be that enterprising on my first trip to Mumbai). And just to keep Gods everywhere happy and in good spirits, there was the trip to Sidhivinayak as well.

To be very honest, Haaji Ali was a kind of disappointment while I was going towards the shrine. But then I discovered the magic of the place on my walk back to the mainland. That is the magic everybody talks about. It is phenomenal, waves lashing the path, the lights of the city in the distance, it's amazing for lack of a more suitable word in my vocabulary.

And unlike others of my tribe (read North Indians) I am not that crazy about beaches, it hasn’t got anything to do with me being afraid of water or not liking beaches as such. It's just that I have seen a few beaches and don’t go as wow about them as the typical Mumbaikar expects a Dilliwala to.

And how could a blog on Mumbai be complete without a mention of the famed local trains. Well, I think the locals and the experience was best summed by someone who said "Locals are meant only for people who were born here and are used to them, for the rest of us, we are not fit for it" Well I can tell you something from my own experience, Mumbai locals are definitely not for the faint-hearted.

To play it safe, I decided to test out the local by going against the direction of office traffic. So most of my travel on the locals was from Santacruz towards Churchgate in the evening while timing the return so that it would be late enough to miss the office rush on the opposite side. And well, I got a first idea of what people mean when they talk about the locals and the rush. When we use the word crowded for Delhi Metro we have no idea what crowded is, that is the non peak rush traffic in the opposite direction of Mumbai locals.

And I have no shame in admitting that one day when I was returning early enough to encounter the last vestige of office rush, I couldn’t manage to get inside the first train that came. So that’s Mumbai local for you.

With this I think I am quite an authority on Indian public transport system. Read credentials below...

Chennai local train- check

Chennai local bus - check

DTC bus - check

Delhi Blueline bus - check

Delhi Metro - check

Mumbai local - check

Next up : Kolkata Metro and tram

Adjustment

This not so complicated word is probably the second word that we Indians have adopted as one of our own after 'Sorry'.

No matter which part of the country are you in, you will find people using it in one form or the other, mixed with their local language. But this is not what this post is about. It is much more personal.

It's about love, it's about loss, it's about grief, it's about not wanting to grow up, it's about yearning for the carefree days.

The trigger for this may seem trivial to you, but for me it's everything or everything over the past two years. Two years back I took one of the best decisions of my life. In case any of you are wondering, no it has got nothing to do with joining FMS or MBA.

It's about buying a Dell XPS (Xtreme Performance System) M1330. Fans of Big Bang Theory will be familiar with this as the make of Sheldon's laptop.

It's a sleek piece of machinery, even after two years a cutting edge demonstration of technology, and more importantly an integral part of my life over the course of past two years. So much so, that I think I love it more than anything or anybody ever!! You have to understand that for me this wasn't just another computing device, it was my partner (I spent bulk of my time with it), it was my newspaper, it was my entertainment, it was my playmate (nothing else, just referring to Counter Strike).

Not that our stay together was all rosy. Not by any stretch of imagination. Well as with all things gorgeous, this one was a delicate darling too. So fragile, that we had to seek external help quite often. Be it the couple of times when my roomie dropped it (I think he was jealous of it) or when I myself got careless. But the result was the same, a brief period of loss which made me fearful of the question, 'What when we are done?', 'What after it?'.

Well, I simply kept pushing these questions under the carpet, just because thinking about them wasn't very comfortable for me. But then the day, even thinking about which was painful for me arrived quite abruptly. We have been separated (or atleast the process has been set in motion).

I would now be using a sturdy, business like Dell Latitude E5500 and bid goodbye to my XPS. And this brings me to my topic for this post, adjustment.

I know this is a more practical choice, a smarter one. I can't expect my XPS M1330 to withstand the rough and tumble of a sales job. But this is my grouse. Why do we have to be practical? Why do we have to make compromises or to put it in other words

'Why do we have to adjust'?

Why can't we simply be carefree, just like we were back when we were kids. When we used to drink Sugarcane juice by the road side without caring for the infections and stuff, when we didn't know what 'Jaundice' and 'Hepatitis' were. When we simply lit crackers on our palms and fist. Why can't we just stomp our feet and act 'unreasonable'?

Maxximum City - I

Whosoever I have told this has expressed surprise and shown amazement, so I perfectly understand your reaction to this.

This is my first ever trip to Mumbai.

Though I was here once earlier, but that was a transit stop on my way to Trivandrum from Delhi. And that time I thought the plane was going to crash in the slums, so this time I was prepared for the sudden descent of the plane into the slums.

To my utter disappointment we got off the aircraft using an aerobridge, otherwise I had plans to get down on the tarmac and kiss the land of Shantaram ala Pope John Paul II.

Well I got out of the airport and the first thing that hit me was that this place smells so much like Chennai. I know some people will take serious offence to this but I don’t know what it is, maybe it is the smell of the sea or the fish or whatever but the two cities smell pretty similar to me (and I love both of them).

Ok, now the first thing I noticed when I got on the road here in Mumbai were the color of the autos. For a Dilliwala who is used to seeing CNG (read green) and yellow autos, the Kala-pilas of Mumbai stand out. And after that it was the multiple shapes and sizes of taxis. From an Alto to a Wagon R to the familiar boxy Ambassadors, all of them are here. Further down the road I noticed something which might sound a bit silly, but I think the flyovers here in Mumbai are miniaturized versions of the ones back in Delhi. Compared to the huge ones at AIIMS and Dhaula Kuan the ones here seem a bit tiny :)

Oh and yes, now the most interesting part of probably any city. I asked an Autowallah if he will go to my destination, he said yes and my next question was "Kitna??" Old habits (formed after years of haggling with Delhi autowallahs) die hard. He looked at me puzzled and indicated towards the meter as if telling me what it was and said "Meter!!"

The autowallah didn’t know the exact place where I needed to get down so he asked a cop, and boy the Mumbai cops have way cooler jeeps than Delhi Police, sky blue camouflage and all, they are simply awesome. Also, the cop who we asked for directions asked the autowallah to take a left from the next junction!!! Now you may not find anything weird with this, but for me this was!! I had half no no fully expected him to say "Next naake se left lena" after all that’s what the cops in the millions of Mumbaiya films did, how could he disappoint me like that.

Well after that I met up with Uddu and Kalle and we went to Hiranandani and again I couldn’t help but notice how cramped this city is and how effectively they make use of space here unlike in Dilli where probably the luxury of space has meant that it goes wasted because of lack of planning.

A friend of mine (I cant remember who) had pointed out something a few days back to me, he had said that in Mumbai all the shops have signboards in English as well as Hindi and to my surprise he was absolutely right. Even places like Levi's and Westside had their names displayed in both the languages. I have no clue about the reason for this, can someone enlighten me??

Another thing which I noticed or rather was staring at me in the face, was how the whole city is swamped by Vodafone hoardings. In light of this when I tried to remember if there was such a thing in Delhi, I realized that maybe Airtel dominates others but not to the extent that I saw here.

P.S. I have not even seen 1/10 of the city, these are just my first observations based on the few areas that I have been ot in a matter of few hours.

P.P.S. The most practical advice regarding living in Bombay Mumbai was given by Paro. She advised me to do away with the North Indian habit of calling everyone a 'Bhaiyya' to avoid getting myself in any trouble.

P.P.P.S. Vishal Dadlani, of the music duo Vishal-Shekhar fame was travelling on the same flight as mine, and I immediately noticed him, knew who he was, as in him being part of the music duo, and that he had sung Dhan-Te-Nan but couldn’t recall his name :O