I was walking on the road with my friends near hotel Samrat, near Church gate. It was a pleasant walk from that place to the Brabourne stadium. There were no buses to be seen anywhere, the roads were empty and were sparsely crowded. Huh? Where am I? This is definitely not the Mumbai that I know. As far as I am concerned, Mumbai boleto crowd hona chahiye. Without the crowd how can it be Mumbai? Saahil tells me that that’s how this part of the city is –South Mumbai. “I have lived here most of the life and this was the Mumbai for me till I started travelling in the local trains” says Anahita, my friend Rahul's fiancee.
I really loved the food at Samrat especially the ‘achar’ which reminded of the ‘aavakai ‘(mango pickle in Telugu) back home. After a sumptuous dinner at Samrat, we moved to Leopold. With English babu Pranay back from UK, we wanted to have a drink after the meal. I am an occasional drinker but this time I was in a mood to try out something. The initial plan was to have a big pitcher of beer which would be sufficient for all 5 of us. But then after the heavy meal, we were in no mood to go for it. ‘Thank God’ I said to myself. Beer is not something I really enjoy. I still remember how I had to gulp a big glass of beer in front of my Australian clients. Social drinking you see. On popular vote we decided to have ‘Tequila'. I quite liked the whole process of having it starting with putting some salt on your hand to finally trying tasting neembu to feel the kick of ‘Tequila’. This was followed by Mexican Milk shake. It tasted like the Irish cream ‘Baileys’ that I had on the flight. It was good. For probably the first time, I really enjoyed drinking. I was thinking that I should get Dad to taste the Irish cream I thought. It is awesome and someone like him, who relishes good food and understands taste, would surely enjoy this. The drink had got to me and I was feeling slightly dizzy. But the bill came that blew all my dizziness away. To put things in the local dialect -‘Poori nasha utargayee.’ It was about Rs 500 per head and I was like”Aaah, there goes 1/10th of my salary. All the saving that I had done traveling in the RED( I won’t call them BEST) buses and local trains was now gone in a jiffy. But then that’s ok. I enjoyed the evening and I wish I would soon earn enough to have such evenings without a tinge of guilt in the background.
I found that there are two contrasting cities within Mumbai, south Mumbai and the rest of it. South Mumbai is the Mumbai that is shown in Bollywood movies and the city that the foreigners visit. One doesn’t find the crowd that one finds in the rest of Mumbai in South Mumbai. I won’t say that one is affluent and the other is not since places like Malad, Andheri and Goregaon are developing at a much faster than South Mumbai. (I think so). But there is a ‘big city feel’ that you get in South Mumbai that is not there in other parts of Mumbai. The Big city makes you feel that you need to do something and be someone some day. I had experienced something similar when I saw the bill after I had a ball out there with my friends. May be it is this feeling of ‘Kuch karna hain aur bada ban na hain’ that drives many others like me into this city. Ah ah! Guess I am thinking too much, getting too much into my future worrying about salary figures. That’s not me. Right now there is no such thing as lazing on your couch on a Sunday afternoon listening to Bollywood numbers and giving vent to your thoughts.
I really loved the food at Samrat especially the ‘achar’ which reminded of the ‘aavakai ‘(mango pickle in Telugu) back home. After a sumptuous dinner at Samrat, we moved to Leopold. With English babu Pranay back from UK, we wanted to have a drink after the meal. I am an occasional drinker but this time I was in a mood to try out something. The initial plan was to have a big pitcher of beer which would be sufficient for all 5 of us. But then after the heavy meal, we were in no mood to go for it. ‘Thank God’ I said to myself. Beer is not something I really enjoy. I still remember how I had to gulp a big glass of beer in front of my Australian clients. Social drinking you see. On popular vote we decided to have ‘Tequila'. I quite liked the whole process of having it starting with putting some salt on your hand to finally trying tasting neembu to feel the kick of ‘Tequila’. This was followed by Mexican Milk shake. It tasted like the Irish cream ‘Baileys’ that I had on the flight. It was good. For probably the first time, I really enjoyed drinking. I was thinking that I should get Dad to taste the Irish cream I thought. It is awesome and someone like him, who relishes good food and understands taste, would surely enjoy this. The drink had got to me and I was feeling slightly dizzy. But the bill came that blew all my dizziness away. To put things in the local dialect -‘Poori nasha utargayee.’ It was about Rs 500 per head and I was like”Aaah, there goes 1/10th of my salary. All the saving that I had done traveling in the RED( I won’t call them BEST) buses and local trains was now gone in a jiffy. But then that’s ok. I enjoyed the evening and I wish I would soon earn enough to have such evenings without a tinge of guilt in the background.
I found that there are two contrasting cities within Mumbai, south Mumbai and the rest of it. South Mumbai is the Mumbai that is shown in Bollywood movies and the city that the foreigners visit. One doesn’t find the crowd that one finds in the rest of Mumbai in South Mumbai. I won’t say that one is affluent and the other is not since places like Malad, Andheri and Goregaon are developing at a much faster than South Mumbai. (I think so). But there is a ‘big city feel’ that you get in South Mumbai that is not there in other parts of Mumbai. The Big city makes you feel that you need to do something and be someone some day. I had experienced something similar when I saw the bill after I had a ball out there with my friends. May be it is this feeling of ‘Kuch karna hain aur bada ban na hain’ that drives many others like me into this city. Ah ah! Guess I am thinking too much, getting too much into my future worrying about salary figures. That’s not me. Right now there is no such thing as lazing on your couch on a Sunday afternoon listening to Bollywood numbers and giving vent to your thoughts.
No comments:
Post a Comment