Yeh hai Mumbai meri ja!

1:40 ki last local.. Cafe Leopold.. Bandstand..! My recent trip to Mumbai made me confess that despite the humid weather, untimely rains, consistent floods, unpredictable stock-markets, tragic bomb-blasts, neck-to-neck traffic jams, fast people, hectic life, and all the other odds, the city just rocks! The city lives and breathes, and you live and breathe along with it!

There is a different persona to the city, with the night-life or without it! Indeed, an honest confession, I myself have never partied overnight in Mumbai, but of-course, like all 'Bombay-ites', I have used locals for 31 days a month, idled late night on Marine Drive, and lived-on wada-pavs when broke; and like most 'Bombay-ites', mastered the art of reading through a 2-hour journey to work, walked Worli sea-face during rains with an umbrella, and shopped till I dropped at Causeway and Bandra.

My four-month stint with the locals definitely deserves a mention. It was adventurous beyond imagination! I travelled both with and without tickets - with IInd Class tickets in Ist Class compartments and without the tickets, in just any compartment, and unfortunately never got caught. Not only did I memorize the names of all stations on Harbor, Central and Western line, in sequence, but also whether the platform would arrive on left or right! I familized myself with all the color codings on the platform - for Ladies, Ist Class, Luggage and Differently-abled, since I travelled in either of them. And though I never got around to applying for a monthly pass, yet became adept at using coupons. To beat it all, was the bomb-blast incident, where I was to board the very targeted train, but by sheer good luck, escaped the fate of a victim and managed to reach home only by dawn next day, amidst all the frenzy and fear. Never mind those stinky armpits where your nose is shoved at a peak hour (until you get a pass for Ist Class, by no means cheap and by every means five times the ordinary fare), but a local ride is truly worth an experience!

Well, I seem to be apprenticed to Aaj Tak to be sensationalizing every bit of my ordinary experience with the locals. Trust you me on this, they are not bad, rather they are not bad at all! Indeed, you would love them for their convenience and pace, and many more things. Every face on a local has a different story to tell, and when over a period of time you encounter the same faces everyday, you could put these into perspective! And these locals are also like a make-shift departmental store, where you can shop for errands including groceries, fruits, toiletries; women of-course have a lot more to look-up, like cosmetics, bindis, jewellery, gogos and what not; also leaving enough scope for nibblers to munch on interesting things typical of Mumbai, such as bhel-puri, chakli, and numerous other local snacks, with a standard rate of five ruppees for everything. And please don't trust me if I said that you would get jostled and pushed around in a local, because you won't, only if you walk yourself!

So, what is it that keeps a 'Bombay-ite' going! Lets first define a 'Bombay-ite'. He has no caste, no color, no creed, no sex and no language. Anyone thriving, living or surviving in Mumbai is just one of the many, one of them! And what is common amongst all of them is the 'hope'. The hope of being, the hope achieving and the hope of fulfilling! It truly is a ‘City of Dreams’; dreams of any magnitude and any stature!

So, if there was something I could hope for and dream of, it would be an apartment at Marine Drive.. a flat at Worli sea-face.. and a bungalow at Juhu ;)

(WANDERER ME)

- Namrta Batra