Experiencing One Year Independence @ Mumbai

One year in Mumbai, one year working in Mumbai rather. I thought I should least blog about this, plus it’s a lazy, nothing to do sort of Saturday. Anyways, coming back to the topic I should probably give a background on the number of cities I lived in. So I was born in Calcutta (Still cant call it Kolkata) grew up there partially and then was shifted to the national capital because my father got transferred. Now Delhi, it has always been super close to my heart irrespective of what the rest of the country would comment on it, you probably wont like it if you just stay there for a short amount of time. But if you grow up there, learn the tricks on how the city works, give it some time to grow on you I’m sure you would love it. So schooling in Delhi, and then moved to Vellore (It’s not Madras or Chennai, and yes it is in Tamil Nadu and yes it’s always hot there) for 6 years. In these awesome 6 years (the bestest years of my life) I went multiple number of times to the IT capital of this country Bangalore (again cant call it Bengaluru). Now Bangalore is a city completely different than Delhi, and not just the weather, the people are different, the atmosphere is completely different, people don’t really stare at girls as if they have button instead of eyes, but Bangalore is expensive. So anyways, 6 years away from home and in between my parents shifted again, this time to the financial capital of the country, the city of dreams they say, the city of Mumbai. Most people complain that there are too many people, too much smell of fish, local trains are always crowded.. blah blah blah. People, yes there are too many of us no wonder it’s so difficult to get a house around here, but you see we make this city what it is. As a girl working here, I honestly don’t think I could be more comfortable travelling alone using public transports at night in any other city. The local train is crowded, I kind of get an advantage there because I travel in the ladies compartment but it’s undoubtedly the fastest and safest means of transport, and I doubt any other city could achieve that. So local is just part of my travel every day, the rest of the travel includes share taxi to station and share auto from station. This one night around 10 pm I sat in a share taxi from dadar to Siddi Vinayak Temple, a lady came up to me and gave me 11 rupees and told me to drop it the temple for Ganpati, before this incident I had never experienced strangers coming up and asking me to pray for them, another night I took a taxi at 10.30pm and I asked him to drop me near the temple and not do all drama about not getting customers on the way back, the driver replied that for girls taxi drivers cannot throw tantrums and if they do there’s a helpline that you can call and complain against it. I know these are probably not huge but they make a difference in my rather dull and boring life. The best thing about this city is the rains, it can rain all day nonstop to an extent that you get irritated of it. But, it looks so beautiful and once you accept that it’ll not stop no matter what it becomes a part of you. Try marine drive during rains, it’s an experience that I definitely won’t forget. Try small restaurants, ooh definitely try the malai tikka rolls loaded with mayo.. yummmm!!!   To people who stereotype places or cities, give the cities a chance to show to what they can be, and fancy cars or fancy restaurants can be found all over but try out the nukkad chai once a while, the vada pav stalls during rains and im sure you’ll love it.

Image Courtesy http://chrisc.com/