Category: Life

Mar 25

Leaving Maximum City aka Mumbai aka Bombay

There is a silly line which I mutter every time I get down on the VT station (okay! CSTM for the MNS and SS) with my friends. Watching the crowd, I’d quote innumerable hindi films:

ये है मुंबई शहर. सपनो का शहर. यहाँ सबको जल्दी है. खाने की जल्दी. ऑफिस जाने की जल्दी. पैसे कमाने की जल्दी. जीने की जल्दी. रोज़ यहाँ हजारो लोग आते है अपने सपनो को पूरा करने..

I arrived in Mumbai around 6 months ago, for my job required me to. I had always believed that if one could survive in Mumbai one could survive anywhere. I had been here before, but always as a visitor, an outsider just for short trips. But this time, I was meant to stay here and live the place.

Within a week of my landing here I ended up living in Dadar. Oh yeah! I was living in the townside as a Mumbaikar would say. For them anything ahead of Sion is a part of the suburb! I guess I had well avoided the most stressful activity for any newcomer, of finding a ‘decent’ place to stay, thanks to an old friend.

Like Morgan Freeman once talked of life being institutionalized my life started oscillating between the 8.41 AM Thane Fast from Dadar and the 6.27 PM CST Slow from Thane back home. Within 15 days I was the champion of the Central Line with a good awareness of surviving Western and Harbor too. I could tell you how much time in exact minutes it takes between point A to point B. I could lounge myself or squirrel through crowds to get in the trains. You could quiz me for any station sequence and I’d ace it!

In between work and trains, the endless stream of people and constant acitivity at any time of the day made it so alive…nothing like the sleepy towns I have been to. Between the extremities of lavish homes at Khar and the people living off the city streets I was amazed by the ‘in your face’ nature of life here.

Hundreds of Mani’s Dosas(What! you never been to Mani’s Cafe in Matunga?) and Filter Kapi fueled my mornings enabling me to be a corporate labor each day, with Mani never realizing how he was fueling India’s GDP through an able manager like myself!

Marine Drive and Nariman Point

Our weekends were sprinkled with our Foodie desires and frequent visits to the Marine Drive. That stretch of Queen’s Necklace would continue to be one of the favorite places of the city, almost an oasis of peace in bustling city. It was a part of my first evening here and I hope it shall be a part of my last evening here too.

Did I love the city? Do I want to leave it? These questions keep coming, but I feel they are irrelevant…afterall the choice has been made, my preferences do not matter. But, I do know for sure that this city allows one to dream and pursue them…it is both kind and ruthless to people….Like Sinatra once sang:

“This town is a lonely town…Not the only town like-a this town…This town is a make-you town…Or a break-you-town and bring-you-down town…This town is a quiet town…Or a riot town like this town…This town is a love-you town…and push-you-’roundtown”

I survived Bombay…and I know I can now survive anywhere.

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Posted in India, Life, Thoughts

Feb 15

When Terror came calling – German Bakery, Pune

It was just two days ago I was in Pune for some work. It was nice to be back in the same place where I spent two years as a student…visited all my favorite joints on the FC Road. Relished the breakfast at Good luck, dosa at Vaishali and what not.

Incidently had crossed German Bakery but just didnt get the time to stop by and grab a bite, it was the perfect western eating joint at KP. A day later, on Saturday 13 February evening, we got the news about the blast at German Bakery.

I was shocked at the news, recalling that I had wanted to visit it. But the real shock came after an hour when we got the news that 4 of my college friends’ were amongst the injured in the blast and that one of them wasn’t traceable.

What followed was an agonizing hour of waiting for any news with networks being jammed his phone was not reachable. Thankfully he was found and had escaped with minor injuries. Thankfully all of them were safe with no severe injuries, but 9 people had already lost lives there!

I for one, had never imagined this could happen to any of us. I never felt that terror could hit people I knew. Had I stayed back in pune for the weekend, I would have been a part of the meetup too!

Maybe we focused too much on the movie release that police couldn’t focus on other things which mattered.

I don’t know the answers, but it has made me realize that this is real…any of these days we could just become a statistic….a casualty. With that our dreams and hopes to make a mark on this world could just end, for no fault of ours, for reasons we cannot comprehend.

Fear wouldn’t solve it, only action would.

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Posted in India, Life, Thoughts

Jan 18

The Charge of the Life Brigade

Not tho’ the soldiers knew
Some one had blunder’d:
Their’s not to make reply,
Their’s not to reason why,
Their’s but to do and die:

The lines above have been taken from Tennyson’s The charge of the Light Brigade. The very same lines are a part of my GTalk status for a few days now. They reflect very well a soldier’s duty to follow orders without questioning them even if these very same orders may lead to their doom!

Most of us admire and envy a soldier’s life filled with discipline, honor and valor. A soldier’s life and the life of his fellow men often depends on following orderswithoutfail or deviation. For people like me, who love to question each decision/order in order to understand the big picture; an army career would have been a difficult choice.

But, just putting the same lines in the perspective of life and replacing the decision maker as God, i suddenly feel that unwittingly all of us just ‘do and die’. Whenever unfortunate events occur in our life, people comfort us by telling that something better is in store and that we should not question it for it is the part of God’s big plan.

But what if, Some one had blunder’d, and the big plan is but a false dream? Then of course, we are just doing and dying only to be forgotten in time…

PS-Apologies if this is a very philosophical and confusing post to read!

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Posted in Life, Thoughts

Jan 12

Mumbai Local

Everyday, my local train leaves Dadar station at 8.41 AM to reach Thane at 9.10 AM Precisely at 9.08, we’d all get up from our seats and lineup on in such a way that the incoming rush at Thane station doesn’t kill us.

As the train draws to a halt, a swarm of screaming people glides in…hurting unsuspecting individuals standing at the door, for they thought that the crowd would allow them to get down first. Its terrifying at times, people can get seriously hurt.

Having lived most of my days in not-so-cluttered environs, I fail to understand why would people risk their lives to reach to theirworkplaces in time. Is work that important? Probably, India’s Got Talent could pick a few gymnasts from the mumbai local horde!

Okay, having scared the reader enough of the local train crowd, i’d bring back today evening’s incident which made me feel different about the same people who seem so mad each morning.

On my return journey tonite, the train stopped at Vikhroli…a blind man was trying to find his way on the platform…almost bumping at the pillars or the seats. Every now and then a passerby would guide him…and save him from hurting himself. Every few seconds i felt that he might hurt himself…but someone always was around to help him out…While my train started moving on, a passerby justheld this man’s walking stick and guided him all the way out.

These are the same people I am afraid of each morning in the train; and now I respect them each day too.
Someone was absolutely correct when he wrote:
Aye dil hai mushkil jeena yahan. Zara hat ke zara bach ke. Ye hai bombay meri jaan

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Posted in India, Life, Thoughts

Mar 18

B Division > Batch 2007 – 2009

Coaxed and threatned here I am penning down on our B Division…aka as padhaku division, boring, nerdy and the uncool or whatever the popular mis-conception was! So then where do I start, shall I do a Mapara and give a comment of each one of us like he did for C Division? Noo…let Mapara bask in his own glory, because i believe our division was a single organism and not just individuals brought together by the Gods of acads department.

So what was B Division – It is a potpurri of different flavors yet one color. Dahling’s of some teacher’s (read Business Law and OR) and nemesis of others (read HR). Managed to score zero as a group in one silly Eff-See-Que of RM, and managed to bail ourselves out of it too. Certain old men give new dimesions to how HR was studied, and then there were others(certain loud mouths) who beat the CLO in explaining HR concepts. Were to the forefront of giving timely submissions and also about not caring for Foundation exams (Oh yes! some of us have still not appeared for a few of those!).

Singles, engaged, committed and married you name it and we have them…oh yes some of us even changed these stages while being a part of the gang. Blessed with singers, and guitarists we even have people who could put Janice(remember F.R.I.E.N.D.S) to shame. College toppers to exam floppers, from the tallest of the tall to the shortest of them all. From pure Punjabi fun to Man madrasa, from pernnial hard workers to sleephyheads(favorites of Pathak Sir) we have seen it and done it all. We have had cake officers to certain non resident students surprising even Prantosh.

…but then how did this cacophony of contradictions ended up giving perfect music? I’ll never know, sometimes things just given an impression of being impossible…but then for B division things have always been possimpible!

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Posted in Life, MBA, SCMHRD, Thoughts

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