Well you love this place, you hate this place!!...This is the face of Mumbai!. Infact this is the fact with all the cities in the world but there is a difference in this one. I have been a mumbaitie all my life….was born here…enjoyed a good school life and then excellent college life and am now employed in mumbai itself.
Over the years I have observed a lot of facets of Mumbai which are normal and routine for a lot of people but we don’t enjoy the uniqueness of them. I feel that Mumbai is the place where no 2 days of your life are the same. If you look closely there will always be something happening in the city which has the potential to catch your eye. There are a lot of new things which happen in this city which I have come to see in the past few years!
One of those is the explosion of multiplex theaters! Once upon a time in a city far far different from its current version, a show ticket use to cost a very affordable 50 -60 rupees. But now I feel that with this amount I wont even get a good bag of popcorns which I can enjoy for atleast 10 mins of the movie! The new multiplexes flex their muscles and make the people of Mumbai to submit to the over the top ticket prices of around 160 rupees for a weekend movie which is worse than a good B grade mithun da movie!! (no offence or no pun intended). However, I still know of a few theaters which still have tickets prices round about 70 rupees but these are very low in quality as compared to the BIG mall cum multiplex theaters! This is the thing about Mumbai. It changed to keep up with the pace of time but still has a few places which reflect the past!
Another important part of Mumbai is the public transportation. The autorickshaw and taxi people are the lords on this! When you ask them for a particular location and if they are not in the “mood”, you will be definitely be ignored! You should be really grateful if they respond at your request! However, if you by chance ask them for a destination while coming out from an airport or a train station (even though you came to leave someone there!), you would be treated with a lot of respect with the lords saying” ok” or no. They will actually try and communicate with you! Once you get into a rickshaw, you get to know how people feel when they sit in a car with Michael Schumacher! They will drive thru the streets of Mumbai as if they are competing in a grand prix!! Of course the yelling and the swearing is not beeped out in this version of the race! Also these guys are a bit weak in Maths. When you give them a 50 rupee note for a travel charge of 48 rupees, you should not expect any change back. You would be lucky if that dude even stays there for a while! These guys are sooo very busy you know! J However, despite this, this mode of transport has been and is still the best and the safest way to move around the city!
Another interesting part of public transportation is the Mumbai BEST buses! The buses have always been the best way to commutate thru the city. My personal favorite mode of transport. I really enjoy Mumbai passing me by as I am traveling thru a BEST bus surrounded by hefty business men who decide to sweat just as I get onto the bus! Then there is always entertainment on the bus when the conductor starts fighting with a fellow customer who doesn’t knw where to go but somehow knows the exact price of the ticket! Another piece of entertainment is the usual fight over rights as to who will sit down on a ladies only seat or on a senior citizen seat! I tell you the best way to acquire a seat on a bus is to be an old aged lady! You get a lot of options! Also the bus allows you to explore the strategic side of your mind when you try to find a comfortable seat for yourself! You should analyse a lot of variables like distance of travel, sun positions, which seats to target, the temperature, wind direction etc etc! And then deduce a seat which is best suited for you. And the irony is that when you target a particular seat, the occupant gets down just before or with you! Also, sometimes you have to play musical chairs with fellow travelers to see who gets the seat when someone gets up!! The drivers of these buses also dawn the Michael Schumacher shoes after 10:30 pm! I tell you…go and board a 84 ltd or a 4 ltd bus and see the actual Mumbai as you travel from Andheri till Churchgate. This is better than even the Mumbai darshan rides.
Finally the king of transport in Mumbai is the local trains! If buses test your strategic side, the trains will surely test your physical side and the strength of the stitching of your clothes! It’s a very good warm up in the morning for people when they run behind or run for a train which is about to leave and you are still stuck on the stairs trying to play dodge ball with fellow commutators! You also sharpen your navigational skills here! Some people also use this place to practice their swift hand trick skills! I never used to enjoy this mode of transport as this mode doesn’t actually show you the kind of Mumbai you wanna see!!
But what is Mumbai without its people!!.. The people in Mumbai are the most sophisticated people you will ever come across! They always try to be ahead of others in terms of loudness, excitement, anger, ignorance etc etc. The planning of people is impeccable. If you have to catch a 9:15 local you will leave your house exactly at 9 and if you get delayed, you will ofcourse blame that on the one thing Mumbai is famous for….traffic!! The favourite pastime of the government workers in mumbai nowadays seems to be digging up a lot of holes which I believe they have done to prevent the water shortage which the city is facing at the moment. However, in event of adversity these very people come together and help out each other. Mumbai in that respect has seen a lot of intense times and has survive thru those times. This survival is all created to the resolve of the very people who combine together to form this tough city!
Mumbai I feel is a fun place to grow up in. Everyday I am exposed to a new situation in Mumbai…something which I haven’t come across in 22 years of my existence in this city. This city gives me the trills to live, gives me the occasion to smile and gives me the moment to make a difference.
So to round up, I would like to complete the very first line of this blog…..” Well you love this place, you hate this place…but you cant live without this place once you got the taste of it!”
obrigado muito muito!
AJ
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