life in .......

Life in Mumbai

My cousin Vineeta recently came to Mumbai from Ratnagiri to stay for a month during her vacations. More than vacations her intentions to come to Mumbai was to experience the glitz and glamour of posh Mumbai which she had only heard of in Ratnagiri. This was her first time in Mumbai so the enthusiasm and curiousness about Mumbai was quiet understood! The moment she arrived in our house, she was ready with the lists of special items she needed to buy and all the exotic places of Mumbai she wanted to travel. Both I and she decided to wander in Borivili national park, Crawford market, Gateway of India, Marine drive,

Fashion Street

and also Juhu Chowpathy. Thanks to my cousin I got to visit some places which I did not get to explore myself!

The next day morning we began our exploration from Gateway of India. Looking at the size and aura of the structure she could not help marvel at the architecture of this pillar which has stood as India’s welcome monument for a century now. She said that you Mumbaikars are very lucky to live in such a wonderful city. To add to that she continued that just like this monument even Mumbaikars lead a splendid life without any problems. I did not mind her calling Mumbai a wonderful city, but it stuck to me that she thinks we Mumbaikars lead a very splendid and good life. The reason is being a Mumbaikar myself I am aware of the hardships I, my parents had to go through in our early part of lives to lead a good life (which is still challenging though!) that we lead today. She was aware of the glittering lifestyle that we have in Mumbai. The McDonalds, the shopping malls, the chowpathy’s the iPod generation, the fast moving Audi on highway, etc.

But what she was not aware was the sacrifices behind all of that. I told her a story of an average Mumbaikar. An average Mumbaikar’s life begins at 5 am at least. He barely gets time to have his breakfast. Also he has to satisfy so many demands of his family in half an hour like money pocket for his son, promise of dentist appointment for his mother, assurance to wife of dinner at hotel in the evening. Then he has to rush and catch his daily 6 34 Dadar Fast so that he cannot be late to his office. He is aware of the new I -card swipe system installed in his office which can cut a pie of his salary which is already calculated in peanuts. He rushes hurriedly to railway platform to find an extra ordinary rush today at the platform and before he can even guess, the announcer very sweetly announces the delay in the 6 34 Dadar Fast. Ghosh! He is aware of the consequences of that- getting in 6 51 slow which will be jam packed coming from Badlapur station! He starts sweating early morning. But holds on to his nerve as he knows if he misses this one he will be late to his office and could lose a chunk of his daily wage. “I will catch this one, no matter what!” he exclaims! If there was a device which could detect and amplify the thoughts of people present on that platform there would have been a huge roar heard that day, “Yes we can!” reminding us of the Obama’s presidential campaign few years back.

He scrambles in the train somehow and heaves a sigh of relief! He reached Dadar on time and also manages to swipe his I card just 4 minutes of the entry time of 8 am. He starts his work on his table. He hears a huge bump on the table which disturbed the papers he arranged on the tray after arriving in the office. The jolt was due to the huge pile of pending papers thrust on the table by the peon followed by greetings “Kay mhantat, majet!” He then starts counting pending papers and gets terrified, “15 pending!” He already knows what time he will be back home today! He finishes hardly 5 of them by lunch time. He is scared of the progress and hence is reluctant to have lunch. But his good friends as always convince him to have his lunch. He resumes work after the heavy dabba given by his wife. He starts feeling dizzy now. But also the pile of papers in front of him keeps him awake (almost looking him in the eye and saying, “jaagte raho!”). He then systematically starts with the 6^th document and is now determined to finish it and go home today early at any cost! A feat he is yet to achieve in last 3 years!

He manages to finish 12 papers by 8 30 and after watching the cleaners pass by towards the exit he feels too ashamed to be the Asst Purchase officer in the company. He says to himself this is it. From tomorrow I am finishing this shit before 6 pm and going home early! The CCTV’s on the ceiling above him has this recording by the same person at the same place a million number of times in last many years. He wraps his work by 9pm and leaves the office last. He walks with slow pace towards Dadar station but with a feeling of somewhat satisfaction of finishing majority of the work. Now he doesn’t care about timings of the train. Any train can do the job for him. He reaches platform and is not surprised to see crowd waiting eagerly for the next train. The train arrives. He boards it. He reaches his house in 1 hour. As he walks past a famous hotel he then suddenly remembers the hotel dinner commitment to his wife. But he knows it is too late and this hotel will be closing in 15 min. His face turns gloomy. He knows that he is unable to satisfy his family. But then like any Mumbaikar he has the spirit to live. He reaches home by 10 30 pm. His wife expecting him to be late prepares the dinner for the family. He has dinner and takes the entire family to a popular tasty pani puri chat in the near by area.The whole family has a light moment to enjoy and these are the small moments Mumbaikars strive for in their daily life and live for!