Showing posts with label mumbai. Show all posts
Showing posts with label mumbai. Show all posts

It rained that night:26 July

Mumbai aapko jeena sikhati hai... -Manoj Bajpai (An excerpt from an interview)

I hated travelling to college..Its a long 2 hour travel one-way(subject of another post). It starts with finding a rickshaw to Mulund station and ends with you getting all sweaty and covered with grime and dirt as you reach Andheri. And your day hasnt even started yet...

Now that I have cribbed enough, let me start on my story. This story is dated 26 July 2005

9:44am-I enter the classroom. 44 mins late for the 9 am lecture.
9:47-Imran enters the classroom. Of all the days I have come late, this man has always topped my record. Btw, Imran stays in Lokhandwala and it takes him 10mins to reach college confused
10:05- There's been a light drizzle all morning. By now it has started raining as it does in July..
12:00-Its been raining in the true Mumbaiya style for the past 2 hrs... Some guys in the class are thinking of cancelling the practicals at 2:00pm
12:05-Calls are made to the lecturer concerned, he turns down all requests of a cancellation.
1:00- Lunch break. Some guys get down to the ground floor to the canteen and find water gushing in slowly.
1:15- Word spreads. Franctic calls all around. Calls made to the lecturer. It seems he hasnt made it to college yet. Hes out sumwhere in Andheri W running errands in office time ofcourse. Welcome to the only Govt Engineering college in Mumbai.
2:10-No sign of the lecturer. Some guys start leaving. More calls made.
2:30- Lecturer calls some guys cell, only to say tht he wont be coming today. Precious 20 mins lost.
2:35-Koli, Chetan and I start what will be the most unforgetable journey of our lives.
We wade through knee deep water outside college, but tth is normal in the month of July. Its not raining now, just a light drizzle. We dont really understand the gravity of the situation.
3:07- We take the train to dadar.
3:27- The train moves smoothly. We reach dadar. No one has the slightest idea that the journey from here will make us change our outlook towards life. This journey will test our will to fight. This journey will show us whether we are strong enough.
3:33- Dadar central. Trains are running awfully late. A train arrives ever so slowly. You could see ppl hanging out from the doors.Its raining cats and dogs now, and the ones hanging out are wet to the bone... Trains dont run this full at 3 pm in the afternoon. Something was wrong here..
Chetan got into the train, me and koli tried gettin in, but couldnt make it in..
3:35- Call Chetan - "Abbe tu ghus gaya kya?" "Haan.. chod next train se aa ja.." "thik hai..chal bye"
3:44- We get into the next train. As it turns out, this will be the last train to move out of dadar station tht day. The train moves ever so slowly through Matunga, Sion.. you could actually hear the train cutting through 1 feet of water on the tracks. Then it comes to a halt at Kurla station.
4:20- Its been 15 mins since the local has been standing there. Locals dont stand for more than 15 secs at any station. Something was definitely wrong. Call Chetan- No network available. All networks down.
4:30- Koli and I discuss the chances of this train moving. Ofcourse the downpour has to stop, and once it does the train will get out of here and we will reach home. We were cursing ourselves for waiting for the lecturers call. We shud hav left by 12 noon itself.
5:30- we are still inside the train, we are wet and hungry and tired. I go out to the station to take a leak, when I come back, I see tht the water level is only a feet below the level of the platform. Its still raining and doesnt look like its gonna stop anytime soon. Then it dawns on me, this train aint going nowhere... There is no way I m gonna spend the night in the train.



5:35-
We decide tht we will get out from the west side of Kurla to the bus depot. From there we will take a Bus to mulund. We got out of the station only to find water everywhere. Almost 3 feet deep. Change of plan, we will get out from Kurla E and then walk to the Eastern express highway. "Highway nahi doobega! Wahan se bus sure milega" Koli reasoned..
5:40-
The situation aint too good on east side of the station either. But we aint left no choice.
We walk through the 3 feet deep gutter water, wading through plastic, pieces of cloth, chappal, polythene bags.. You could see many other ppl wading through the muddy waters. We formed a Human chain when the force of the waters was too much to navigate through.
We could see half submerged Hondas and Santros along the sidelines.



Most shops were shut down except a few grocery store where some locals were buying loaves of bread.
Guys in our human chain, were exchanging numbers, so that if anything happens to any of us, atleast our folks at home could be informed.
That sent shivers down my spine.I realised that something bad could actually happen to one of us...sumthing bad could happen to me..

We reached the highway. It was relatively empty.. there were more ppl than cars on the highway and there was no sign of a best bus.


We walked through Ghatkopar, Vikhroli to Kanjurmarg. Thats 20kms for you. All along you could see ppl walking. Some who were as old as 50 walking. Some one asked a uncle who seemed really tired as to where he was walking from. "Lower parel"..That did it for me, if he can walk, so can I.

Sumwhere in between I lost Umesh. I was all alone now. The street light were not working, at it was around 9pm now. Out of the three lanes, 2 were completely submerged. I could only see water everywhere. It was not easy to makeout where the highway ended and the side trenches began. I kept walking, I could sense I was nearing Mulund. I kept walking till I was within 5 kms of my home, but I had lost the will to walk... Just then a God sent Best bus came through, i jumped in.. The bus left me at Mulund station. Mulund, which I can safely say is one of the best planned suburbs in mumbai was underwater too.. It was impossible to differentitate between the tracks and the platform. But thankfully the lights were on! It felt good to see the yellow of sodium lamps.. I got a bus from the station to my home. I reached home at 11:30. I came in and lied down on the floor in the living room with the wet clothes still on!! I had been walking for the past 6hrs. I had covered more than 30kms on foot.. I was tired, hungry and angry. Angry at the BMC, the college, the lecturer, at myself..
It could have been worse though.
Chetan spent the night on the Vidyavihar platform.
Navin and Prasad slept in the corridors of a call centre near Ghatkopar
Some guys spent the night in the college.
Some slept in Best buses, some others in local trains...

944mm of rainfall in one day.
Rs. 450 crores worth of property damaged.
Atleast 1000 dead. Hundreds missing.

Dedicated to everyone who witnessed the mayhem. Dedicated to the people who put up a fight against nature to come out victorious. Dedicated to the 1000 mothers whose sons didnt return home that day... It rained that night:26 JulySocialTwist Tell-a-Friend
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Castaway : Manori beach

This sunday I accompanied my office friends to this beautiful paradise called manori beach. For all my readers in Mumbai, this post can be quite useful.
So heres how it began. We have been doing 6 day weeks from like ages... Pallavi got this brainwave of arranging this outing. The problem with our office is tht we have absolutely no holidays whatsoever!! There are like 8 holidaysin an year, I suck at remembering dates, but these ones I do, there r only 8 to rem!!

We were looking at an outing which wouldnt take more than 1 day coz thts all we got.. Prajakta, the explorer tht she is, put in this idea about Manori.

After a few postponements, the day was finally decided.. This is how it goes - Mulund->Thane->Borivili->Gorai->Manori

We[Sharang, Shruti, Pallavi,Amit,Sachina and above all(heh heh)me!!] took an Asiad(I have no idea why it is called tht). For those who came late, Asiad is ST's so called luxury bus. Its better than ST which I believe has no shock absorbers. They have shock transferers, every lump on the road is felt by your spinal chord.. Your spinal chord cries like its been subjected to a lot of Himesh Reshamiyas songs..

So after 45 mins we reached Borivili(E). The organiser of this whole outing thingy, Prajakta, was to meet us at Borivili(W) in about 10 mins.

But as it goes with girls, these 10mins took about 30mins! Akshay aka aks aka sukhi was to meet us here with Prajakta.Now Aks crept up from sumwhere wearing nothing but his attitude(and clothes ofcourse). I mean he looked as cool as Saif in Tashan with those sunglasses and tht goatee(I am straight,I am trying to make a point here..Pls be patient) . As he nears I realise he has no backpack up his back(thts why he looks cool? Get it?)

Aks: Arre tu bag mein kya laya?
Me: Abbe? Change!!
Kya baat kar raha hai!! Prajakta toh boli sirf towel leke anaa!
Shruti:(with genuine concern)Tu towel leke aya hai kya?
(unable to control his laughter)Nahi!!

Crazy right? Thts aks for you!

Next, we take a rick to Gorai, you get a ferry every 15 mins to get you from this End of the creek to tht opp one.

As the mech engg in us took over, there questions floating in our heads..

Me:Arre is mein(ferry mein) bhi gear hai!!
Aks:Abbe har chalti cheej mein gears hote hai!!
Really?
Abbe isme Reverse bhi hai..
Haan be.. sahi na..
Merko bol arshat, Reverse mein ek hi gear kyun hota hai..I mean why dont you have like 2-3 reverse gears..
Coz you dont need it..
Oh!
Yeah! (Genius)

We decided to keep our mouth shut when an aunty sitting opp to us, gave us "The look" The look seemed to say, "Keep your puppy mouths shut or I ll kick you in the nuts"

The ferry took like 10 mins and we found us just one step away from Manori. But you know what they say, one small step for a man, one big step for a horse.. Some girl in the group had the brilliant idea to take the tanga(horse cart, you angrez ki aulads :P) I dont get why us guys have to take the front seats on the tanga, why cant the girls sit there in the front, it was them who thought this would be fun.. And I dont get why they r called the "front seats" they are right behind the horsie's behind!

Me:Is gaddi mein kitna horsepower hai? Two bhp? buwahahahah..mrgreen

Somehow the horse didnt enjoy the joke and he/she lifted up his/her tail and let out half a kg of horse manure.. I decided to keep my silly jokes to myself..
10 mins into the travel..
Me:Aks, har chalti cheej mein gears hota hai na? Is ghoda gaddi mein kitna gears hai??
Everybody laugh.. bwahahahaha... Up went the tail, horse shit again..

Why cant I keep my mouth shut!!

Our cart rider though never kept his mouth shut.. He kept singing this songs which I suspect were from some C-grade Konkani movie.. "Tawa kela garam.. hmm hmm.. mulgi zali naram" some shit like tht.. He sweared at almost at every other cart driver on the way.. He had this stick with which was actually his acceletor.. There were 2-3 times when I was hit, I let out a neigh or two, if I remember correctly..

http://farm1.static.flickr.com/100/280554854_000679bed6.jpg?v=0

30 mins after the ride, we reached our resort, Dominica(Ph 022-24462161).. Its a nice place if you like peace and quiet.. The beach is like 2 mins from our cottage. Me and akshay were the first ones into the sea, other boys joined a lil late..
Girls took 1hr 12mins to get ready. Pray, tell me how do you get ready to get wet!!?

The water is okay, I mean dont expect Ganpatipule, but its relatively clean. 2 hrs in the afternoon sun and lazing around in the salt waters and it was time for some pet puja.. When I reached the resort, there was Aks in my six pockets, and Amits vest..

Me:Salee!
Aks:Ruk na, I hav left my pants to dry..
Mera pant tereko mila kahan se?
Prajakta ne diya!!
Towel kiska use kiya?
Patah nahi..shayad tera..
Abbe yeh mera nahi hai..
Prajakta:Arre yeh mera towel hai..
Wht goes around comes back around bwahahahaha....*evil grin*

Btw, I still havent figured out whose underwear he was wearing..question

There not much to see around. The resort has got its swings, hammocks and see-saws on which we had the most fun!! This place is for you only if you are a water person and dont care about getting a tan, which makes u look like you have been to the sun and back!!

On the way back I realised how tired I was.. And how much I miss these guys.. And how much fun I had with them...

“I have found out that there ain’t no surer way to find out whether you like people or hate them than to travel with them.”
-Mark Twain

Twain couldnt be more correct... You guys rule...

Thank you for the memories.....


Castaway : Manori beachSocialTwist Tell-a-Friend
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You know you are from Mumbai when....

http://www.ilga.org/news-upload/marine-drive-mumbai.jpg
You know you are from Mumbai when.....

arrow Stock market quotes are the only other thing besides cricket which you follow passionately.

arrow You take fashion seriously.

arrow You spend more time travelling than you send at home.

arrow 9:47 fast, means something to you.

arrow u think tht delhi copied INDIA GATE frm mumbai's GATEWAY OF INDIA...

arrow You're suspicious of strangers who are actually nice to you.

arrow You consider eye contact an act of overt aggression.

arrow Amitabh Bachans house is a landmark

arrow When there's no place to breathe in the trains but there's place to play cards and sing bhajans!

arrow You refer to the city as Mumbai and not Bombay .

arrow You say that Pani Puri is waayy better than Gol Gappa's even when they're the same thing

arrow Every three months you look at your street and say "Why're the digging the road again?"

arrow You actually pay for your rickshaws by the meter.

arrow You know what the term "video coach" stands for in the local trains...

arrow"Gheun Tak" is your life ideology.

arrow You aren't surprised when somebody throws a water balloon at you while you're walking on the streets during March.

arrow you can only smile forgivingly about the size of any other city in the world.

arrow Every time you speak Hindi in front of a Delhitite they have the WTF expression on their face.

arrow When while giving directions you say "Right MARO aur wahan pe ek bridge GIREGA"

arrow You have hung on to dear life at the local door.

arrow When you think everyone who lives to the south(Mumbai) of you is a snob and to the north of you sucks

arrow when u c movie names like "shootout at Lokhandwala" & 'Ek chalis ki last local" & don't have to ask what the name means

arrow you consider the local train "empty" when you find a spot for your two feet to stand on.

arrow when "chalta hai" is the most commonly used word

arrow Everything to the north of Mumbai is UP-Bihar and everything below is Madras

arrow if someone calls u "aap"-- u start laughing on their faces...

arrow when you call the BEST bus, BST, even though BEST is painted on every single public transport bus operational in Bombay

arrow It takes longer to get off from your house to the station than from one end of Mumbai to another by train.

arrow Being truly alone makes you nervous.

arrow Crorepati, Lakhpati, Hazarpati, Chillarpati all travel in local Trains daily-together!.

arrow You have learnt how to stand in a queue

arrow u treat mumbai as a country itself

arrow when you actually see random people coming to help you when u have a problem

arrow u want to get into the train already that is already in motion & u have 5 hands taking u in..

arrow You are back to work next day after the city is bombed - Truly the spirit of Mumbai

arrow When you allow complete strangers to spend the night in your house because its raining outside and half the city is submerged...
You know you are from Mumbai when....SocialTwist Tell-a-Friend
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2 guys, a girl and "Con Panna"

Last sunday I met some of my oldies. I call them my oldies coz i have known them for more than 9 years now...And as it goes with old friends, it was great fun...

Some musings
*Powai doesnt have half the outlets tht Nirmals does!
*Powai still is a lot of fun
*Its fun with your old friends even when you have nothing to talk about and nowhere to go...
* Your friends know you too well to see through you when u are lying..
*You can talk bout anything to them
Arshat: Some guys make me wanna be a girl (@#$#! did I say tht out loud?)
Harish: whaaa?
Sandy: ewww..
(Yeah! I had said tht out loud..)
Arshat: er..well George clooney and John Stamos...
and my German boss (shit! did i hav to say his name!!)
Sandy: ewww..
*Well maybe you cant talk bout everything with them

*The problem with ppl who know you inside out is tht they judge you before hearing you out..

*Its bloody cold here! Sunday was the coldest day in the last 45 yrs in the history of mumbai! (10.2deg C is the recorded temp in Santacruz..Powai is colder..In Mulund its snowing...I have a tendency to exaggarate)..Take out the wollens ppl!

*Its fun when there r two guys and a girl! Coz when I say sumthing stupid, trust Harish to come up with something equally foolish.. Makes me look a lot better mrgreen

*If there is a single girl among two guys she ll get special attention..(Ah! genius!)

*Mochas is absurdly costly!evil
Sandy : I will have the "cookie crumble"
Arshat: tereko cost patah hai? Rs.95!! (I can be quite a chindi if i want toolol)
Harish: I hope you know, ur cookie is gonna be this big(his fingers denoting the size of a 5 rupee coin)
We being the smart ones called for the- "Con panna" for Rs.40! Nice choice we thought..

When we got our orders we found the "Con panna" is called so for a reason. You see, its a CON! The size of the cup was smaller than the cups which come with the Barbie friends set!



(My female friends hav passed me on this info..I havent even touched Barbie till date..er..well..maybe once or twice..)

Sandy got her cookie crumble, the size of cream on which resembled the hills tht overlooked Powai..
Bloody Mochas..
Just to add, we mowed down half the hills from Sandy cup...Lifes so fair..razz

*There are many firangs roaming around in Powai..With not many hotels around, I wonder where they come from..

*All my friends have topped their respective trades sometime or the other...For eg - Harish topped school..Sandy topped the univ last yr... In most parts of the world having such friends would classify me as a loser but I can safely say they are not as geeky as their portfolios sound..

*If there is a single girl among two guys she ll get special attention (Did I mention tht already?)

*No matter how much u like the guy and how much you miss each other, u cant hug at the end of the day
Arshat: akward hug or cool guy handshake?
Harish: cool guy handshake for sure!
Stangely enough ask a girl this and you get a stare tht will make sunny deol pee in his pants
razz

Its been a great 9 years with you guys...We have been through good and bad times together.. We might not hav a lot of time for each other more so as we get involved further with our respective careers and stuff... But I just want you guys to know, phone calls or no phone calls, mails or no mails, we will remain friends forever...
I hope I be there when Harish gets married and stuff (and stuff? :P).. I hope to be there when Sandy has a daughter(I m sure u gonna have a daughter...)
And hope we be there after our retirement and then we talk about all the fun we had when we were 20 over a cup of...er..."Con Panna"?? :) 2 guys, a girl and "Con Panna"SocialTwist Tell-a-Friend
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