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