Mumbaaiiiiii.....

Mumbai is a great city..

A complex city, of simple people. The greatest luxury in the life of an average Mumbaikar is the prized ‘Window Seat” in the local. No sooner is the train in sight; half the population of octogenarian present on platform and nearly all the middle aged men are in air in anticipation of landing into the local, even before it comes to a halt, just for that prized window seat. The precise calculation of the velocity of jump and the angle of propulsion is so complex that it would make a neat research paper involving the most complex mathematical formulation. But then it is Mumbai, and mark you no one perfects the act as well as a Mumbaikar who tries this gravity defying stunt several times a day. For the less fortunate ones, less said the better.

No other group of humans, except the 1.8 million mumbaikars, will ever agree to mutually continue living in as infrastructur-ally challenging conditions as prevalent here. The vestiges of the roads, found scattered between the perennial potholes makes the progress of the traffic in an otherwise fast city very slow. If you are lucky, you will , by God’s grace, be able to cover the distance meant to be covered in half an hour, in one hour and that will be “decent by Bombay” standards.  The city lacks navigable roads and none, I repeat none apart for some destitute souls like me resent it. But BOSS great roads do not make a city great. I agree.

What makes this city great is its citizens, and their MUMBAIKAR spirit. And being a north Indian, I have on many instances been at the receiving end of this SPIRIT. But Mumbaikars are aware people and care for their city, so much so, that for every small rat killed, one is sure to find a candle march being organized in the memory. Like every other metropolis, the city is stratified, and the class divide surprisingly, does not have a financial basis, but geographical origins. West is more fashionable than East and South is classier than North. So all the young ladies (reading this),now know where to look for an eligible Husband in the city. The divide is so prominent that it even defines the mode of transport. So the ‘rickshaw’; the favorite public transport for millions of Indians is not even allowed in the “town”. Taxies, the richer cousins of rickshaw, serve the townies.

Town as it stands today, build by British, some 100’s of years back, seems to be more judiciously planned and much more aesthetically pleasing than its newer counterparts in suburbs.

No discussion of Mumbai will be complete without Monsoons. Mumbai is at its best during Monsoons. The showers of “life giving waters”, brings back life to the otherwise parched city spirit and opens new channels of mobility. If you are a good swimmer and are game for a little exercise, monsoons months present an excellent opportunity. One can virtually swim from any part of city to another. The famed Milan Subway is one of the many glaring example of our nonexistent civil planning. The number of days it remains submerged, is metaphorically used by the Mumbai metrological department to judge the status of rainfall in the city as good or bad. Rains are not a new phenomenon to Mumbai, they as old, or probably even older than Bombay. But surprising, the civic authorities have till date been unable to find a permanent solution to this perennial problem. But then rains are not the time to crib, one should be grateful to gods for not being born in a desert. It’s the time to enjoy the showers with a plate of bhajiyya and a “cutting chai” and if you so wish add a Vada Pav.....