Bombay And Someplace Else

Life sucks. Really. Which is why sometimes you need a holiday. Alone. Actually lets say partially alone.

Mumbai. The so called 'uptown' for about a little less than 15 million. I always liked the name Bombay. If only not for some tharkey morons.

Well the bus journey was nice. As a review VRL travels from Bangalore to Mumbai is really nice. As i heard from people u generally find the seat beside you unclaimed and you get a majestic ride on your makeshift singhasan. Plus the journey gets better though with a few stops and the lush greenery all the way through NH4. Also thankfully I could always annoy my ever loyal twitter followers.

Finally good morning Mumbai. I was greeted with a fraud autowallah. Given the kind of reputation I knew about mumbai auto service, this guy was all set to make a big hole in his own plate. 250 bucks for a 100 bucks distance. It was me who felt like saying 'kya bhaiya bumbai me pehli bar ?' but thanks to google maps, the dope was averted. This would probably be the first time i had seen full grown mountains all over a metropolitan city. Why dont they declare mumbai a tourist hill station instead of a financial capital.

Month of July. Here comes the rain. Thank you Mr. Indra for making me spend 150 bucks on a goddamn umbrella. 'Bloody bad timing to visit Mumbai' said in context by a friend at IITPowai.

That's how the beginning of my mumbai ki sair sucked.

My guest cum host was late, by approximately 3 hrs 6 mins and some seconds. Generally that length of duration should trigger off riots, but i was as composed as usual. Anyway so where do we go?? since we are already near Juhu, the rain dance starts with a detour to the beach. and the usual mumbaikaari stuff followed.. gola, rains, local trains, rains, band stand, rains, Mannat (special destination), rains, marine drive, typical bollywood shooting (feat. sonu sood), rains, rains and more rains, gateway of India, Taj and finally some more rains. Unfortunately that's all the timing for the day allowed. For the record I missed paw bhaji, vada paw, dhobi ghat, sea link, chor bazaar, etc, etc.

The following day was nicer and pretty eventful. To be vague enough, there was a missed train, an annoying bus journey with an even annoying ego maniac driver (lol), rains, mountains, tunnels, cliffs, fog, waterfalls, some awesome sceneries and yummy chikkies.

Talk about food ? Dinner at Global Fusion. This is what I call jannat. A mine of gold for a bong foodie with a taste for chicken and fish. Awesome ambiance with the right amount of brightness, right number of couples and the right number of kids. Three buffet counters Chinese, Thai and Japanese all waiting to pamper you with the choicest delicacies in chicken, prawn, momo, squid, sushi, lamb, beef, et al. prepared right in front of you. it was heart breaking to know its not a franchise. but then they say disappointments are nothing but good business ideas. point noted.

That was the nice part. Here comes the unexpected fun. It was time to get back to the hostel push off the pressure and enjoy a cuddly nights sleep. The security guard at the IIT gates decided to be trouble and make my journey memorable. no entry. gyarah baje ke baad guest not allowed re. tum abi nai gussakta..

sir please,
bhookh lagi hai sir,
bahaut door se aya hu sir,
sir bolo kya jama karna hai (with a smile)
Damn. Nothing worked.

So here i start walking away in a city of 15 millions (with most of them sleeping already) to find a place to sleep.

Fortunately everybody in Mumbai has a nice piece of advice to part with. You get plenty of them some crap, some useful. hmm thats solves it right. wrong. Somebody calls out: O hullow bhaisaab mere paise de do.

oops autowallahs should be paid, even when you are in trouble, even in mumbai. Anyway i wasnt paying him till i get a place to sleep.

Time to see some different kind of Mumbai night life. off we go enter lanes exit lanes turn right turn left etc etc. all you see is gold lit hiranandani skyscraper buildings. They don't even let stray dogs pass in.

This auto wallah Sohail something in his early 20s it seemed, stays near bandra and was hungry and wanted to end his business for the day right after his last customer got a place to sleep at 2 in the night. Also my source of light entertainment. He was kind enough to run his vehicle up and down about thrice between andheri and powai and ghatkopar, and find me a good lodge. found one. bhaiya yahan nahi rehna ya achha area nahi hai.. (TWHS)

kyun ??

dhandha wala jagah hai bhaiya..

oh..

silence

aap bolo to bandra side chaliye udhar main kuch aur jagah janta hu nahi to aap mere auto me hi so jana main kahin aur so jaunga aaj ke liye

hahah now i was enjoying. Unfortunately i had an expensive camera else i actually wanted to pass the night in an auto. You generally curse yourself for being that crazy :)

Thanks to his fellow bhai bandhus both on the road as well as on phone we could avoid costly places, laugh on their rates and eventually find a decent hotel. No he dint charge me up a hefty bill. I left him to his dinner at 4am with a dhanyawad and a handshake. now that's what you call connecting with locals.

Life is definitely tough in Mumbai. You find people running. Always. Running everywhere to everywhere else. Not that we don't run in Calcutta / Bangalore, but not as if our ass is on fire. (err.. no we don't run in Bangalore. At all :P) what a hurry. The mantra being, if you aren't rich, run. There is thing about the city that it teaches you to adjust and adapt and still evolve. I even saw a worker clean himself up in the middle of the road using the water from a puddle of rain water. Advantage of 24x7 rains you can say, you get real clean roads, almost. Add to that the usual problems of not being a planned city. As a rain hater I was quite indifferent to rains with all its ugliness by the end of 48 hours. Yes of course people do have this chalna hai chalne do attitude spread all around, but then that's a problem with all of India.

For one thing the auto service is very dependable. Not without reason though. Mumbai is a large city, you go anywhere to anywhere and its easily 100+ bucks, that's like a lions earning per trip for any auto wallah with decent business dreams. You cant really compare that with Bangalore where you almost cross the diameter of the whole city in 100 bucks, may be which is why they succumb to asking exorbitant extras. Call it peer pressure if you want.

Well the trains were good, far better than Calcutta. both in terms of frequency and interiors

My visit was right after the mini serial blasts of July 2011. Not that I expected people to be over hyped about it but there was this indifference about it that triggers a confusing feeling about how to conduct yourself about it being all new in the community. even calling it a 'mini' serial blast makes me wanna think over if i should change that line to something appropriate.

And finally time to say bye bye to the land of Khans, Sherukh Khans. Well personally i wouldn't really prefer relocating from a place like Bangalore to Mumbai, but to conclude, take away the rains and you already love this city.