Around Mumbai in 60 days - I

13:42, Sunday afternoon, IIT Bombay

Thirty days have passed since my arrival at Mumbai from Ghatsila. Mumbai was not as bad as I expected. IIT Bombay was not as great as I expected. The room ends as soon as you enter. Assigned to two students, having a chair inside is a luxury we can't afford. 

In the first week when I was sleeping late at night against the wall, the wall shook at times and pushed me. No I was not high. I thought it was just an earthquake and calmly resumed my sleep. In the morning I discovered that the wall was a temporary cardboard partition to divide our room from the neighbours' and I must not apply too much force on it lest I interrupt them in their long daaru-sutta conferences. 

My roommate is Shantanu dot Shankar from Bokaro. Besides an intern at Deutsch Bank, he has accomplished the art of fussiness, weird reasonings, etc. If you somehow look at his yearbook page you will find words like selfish, “haraami”, etc. inscribed. I appreciate the effort taken by people to do so. But one quality I admire the most is he never defaults on his loans- always returns my money. AAA rating.

First weekend I went to Elephanta Island on a steamer boat. There was not much to see on the island except an old cannon, lots of ticket counters at frequent intervals, monkeys, and local stalls selling supposed to be cool Elephanta t shirts. On the passage across the sea water we saw some cool big ships. Some were christened “blah blah Gandhi” .The only Gandhi I appreciate is Mahatma Gandhi (not just because he is on the currency notes). I think he was selfless, patriotic and united the countrymen. Besides the voyage I also admired some wild berries sold by the locals and tire tubes on the boat to save us. 

The next weekend I went to Sanjay Gandhi National park in Borivali. Even though the place was nice, the name is so inappropriate. Neither has it anything to do with Gandhi nor national park. I saw a lazy lion lying on its back and behaving like a dog. The word “Gandhi” corrupts everything-even the lions. We went to Kanheri caves inside. It was an irrationally expensive trip. I like caves. They are cool to look at.

Third weekend. I did not go anywhere. My roommate arrived this week. We did go to the Marine Drive at 12in the night. We must have walked 4-5 km in the entire night trip. We covered the entire to and fro journey from room to Marine Drive inside 110 rs for two people-it includes the 20 rs water bottle we bought at the Drive. Sounds impressive?

On the road along the ocean, some people with weird hair style were driving bikes like on race track. One random person was slowly going on his bike near the edge of the road. I don’t know what exactly happened but in the end the guy driving slowly was caught by a constable and there was a lot of commotion. It would have been more entertaining with popcorn. We were under the impression that the Drive won’t be crowded at midnight. Apparently everyone thought so and the Nash Equilibrium shifted to everyone from Mumbai being present at the Marine Drive.

Random Weekday, Irage Capital, Goregaon

Someone asks me: “So how do you like the rains in Mumbai ?”

Me:”What rain? Never saw any. I always see puddles on the road in the morning and at evening…and every place as wet as it can get….never saw live rainfall”

I was sure that some elves were involved!

Someone: “kk..let’s see”

End of the day, 20:00

Stepping outside the office building

Someone: “Mumbai rains welcome you. Have a pleasant stay”

I got drenched by the time I had exited office campus. Reached bus stop. Could hardly get more drenched. It reminded me of the movie Forrest Gump in which Tom Hanks describes the rain in Vietnam :” One day it started raining, and it didn't quit for four months. We been through every kind of rain there is. Little bitty stingin' rain... and big ol' fat rain. Rain that flew in sideways. And sometimes rain even seemed to come straight up from underneath.”

I stood alone on the bus stop with God pouring buckets of water over me. When I got on the bus rain really got thinner. I was surprised. When I stepped out of the bus at my stop in not more than 5 seconds someone increased the pace of rainfall back to full power. Inside IIT B, it reminded me of Venice where there are waterways to connect the city instead of roads. Auto rickshaws did not stop at my hand waving. One of them waved back instead. The hard disk in my pocket fell prey to Mumbai rains.