This is what it is....

Mumbai....when I got to know that I'll be joining my first job in this city, I was confused as to what to feel! I did not know if I should be excited that I would be in the best city in India (thats not what I thought at that point of time though :p ) or should I be scared of being in that HUGE city all alone! No matter how much thought I gave it, it sounded exciting always! :)

But but...then I got the chance to speak to my relatives who live in Mumbai and when I got to know that I'd be travelling for an hour everyday in order to reach office, I was like umm...now I don't think I'm gonna like the city! An hour everyday!??!? Are you kidding me!!!!?! I'd be spending so much time on the train only in all the crowd or 'gardi' as the mumbaikars like to call it! :p I just decided to take things as they come and not think too much about it!

First two weeks were amazing! Stayin in the company provided, awesome accomodation...getting picked up at the entrance of the building for work...hmm...I guess its not that bad afterall! In those two weeks, we searched for apartments like crazy...EVERYDAY! Apartments after apartments and we wouldn't like any....finally, at the end of two weeks, I dint have either a roommate or an apartment so the next destination was my cousin's place to stay at! Well, I wasn't complainin...no one would if ya gettin to stay in Colaba! :D Everyday commute to office was not that hard afterall....bang an hour and I'd be in office! I got use to going to office...well, training yes! :p The training period was just awesome!! The tests we failed..and did not fail...yes the situation was not 'the tests we passed and did not pass' :p The amount of fun I had...oh...unbeatable! :)


From asking before getting into every train and getting onto the wrong train twice, I was finally telling people which train to take! :D Everyday crowd in Mumbai amazed me....it was so easy to get lost in that crowd! So many people...everyday....so many!! Each morning when I reached VT (now CST), I always felt like one of the protagonists in those hindi movies who came to Mumbai in search of a job :p But travelling in the train was as exciting as it was scary! The first train I took to office, I stood at the door 3 stations before mine and got really annoyed looks from people around! But nevertheless, I was proud to have made it to the office that day...really! From being scared of the trains, of the long commute, getting out of the house, gettin a bus to the station, a train to the next station and an auto to office finally became a routine activity and went by without even realizing, the fact that I was using all possible means of public road transport in a day!

Mumbai is like this city that accepts everybody with arms open as wide as possible. Initial two months in the city felt like torture...the trains, the crowd, the noise....but now that I'd be leaving, I think I'm gonna miss the trains, the crowd, the noise. I am gonna miss the fact that you can mingle here so easily...not just with people you make friends with, but also with the strangers you travel with on the train. Every person who lives in Mumbai knows the basics of sharing if not caring. Four-five people on a seat in the train meant for three would actually show you that people here really don't mind sharing their space, their city! I not for one day felt like an outsider in this city....I will miss the orange sky in the evenings on marine drive....I am gonna miss the fact that you could be as significant to yourself while you walk along the sea as lost you are to the crowd...you could get on a wrong bus/train and have so many people dying to help you find the right one...I am gonna miss the fact that you could take a Virar train at 12 in the night and feel safer in the middle of the crowd than you would taking your own car for a drive at 9 in the night...Mumbai is known as the city that never sleeps...I thought those are things people just say, but its true...the city NEVER sleeps and neither does let others! :p Walking out of a restaurant at 4:30 AM, I dint expect 3 autos waiting right there, more than ready to take you where you wanted by meter, without any extra charges because of the night!! Could you find this anywhere else?? Could you find more indifference to two women fighting in the train and/or more care for a girl who has taken the wrong train and is sitting in a train that is gonna go in the exact opposite direction of where she wants to go, chatting happily on the phone thinking that the train is not getting a signal to move forward, forgetting that its a local train and not a long distance train to not get the signal to move for 15 mins! You could never walk out of a station fighting for space on the footover bridge at 12:30 AM in any other city! You could never see as many women go to work with as much confidence as you would find in this city. There is nothing that you can't find in this city!! What you want, is RIGHT there!! There is no other place in the world where an uncle would remind you of the correct bus numbers 3 times before you got off the wrong bus. There is no other place where you would enjoy the sea breeze and the waves as much...no other place where you could be with a million people and yet think as deeply as you wish to....no other place where you can walk out of your house alone and find so many friends before you reach the destination...it is IMPOSSIBLE not to fall in love with this city, with its people...the tolerance of people in all the congestion, traffic, dirt, crowd! And its not that it would take a new person long to develop that tolerance...Mumbai teaches you everything and real quick!

Now that I am leaving this city, I look back and think, I would love to travel in the traffic from Andheri to Sakinaka, take 45 mins for 5 Kms coz its worth it being in this city! There is nothing that compares to the congested roads, the blue-grey skies, the pollution, the crowd coz all these things are different when they are in Mumbai...the city covers up for all its flaws to the extent the flaws don't seem like flaws anymore...

In retrospect, its not that hard to become a Mumbaikar atall! :)