mumbai meri jaan part 2

i'd so love to write about it.. but having left it for so long.. i have actually forgotten what i did for the rest of my trip..

i'd say dont read the about me section in my profile.. this post should tell you all you need to know about me.. ;-)

here are my notes which i was going to use to write this post..

26th met b, n, night out at s's
27th ticket to k, met r, p and a.. travel during night
28th reached k, temple visits
29th pray for r-s, travel to i, met cousins,
30th reached mumbai met a m, met p j and then a. went to pp's place
31st went to vashi, bought bhavu a gift, went to khargar met grawl, shat in cross cafe,
1st cricket stuff, b, books, siddhivinayak, vyo, grawl and night out at pp's
2nd Vyo, p, n airport..
3rd.. back to bad weather, fish n chips, mary fuckin poppins... you got it.. :P

mumbai meri jaan part 1

Aankhon Mein Jis Ke Koi To Khwaaab Hai
Khush hai Wahi Jo Thoda Betaaab Hai
Zindagi Mein Koi Arzooo Kijiye
Phir Dekhiye ……

Hoton Pe Jis Ke Koi To Geet Hai
Woh Haare Bhi To Us Ki Hi Jeeet Hai
Dil Mein Jo.. Geet Hai Gun Guna.. Lijiye
Phir Dekhiye……

Yaadon Mein Jis Ke Kisi Ka Naaam Hai
Sapno Ke Jaise Us Ki Har Shaaam Hai
Kisi ko.. Aaj Se Apna Dil.. Dijiye
Phir Dekhiye…

Khwab Bhun.. Yeh Zara Geet Sun.. Yeh Zara
Phool Chun.. Yeh Zara...
Phir Dekhiye

This just sums up my trip back what i call home, Mumbai. In case you are not from Mumbai or are unaware of its magic, let me tell you that for those of us who are from mumbai, this is a place which is a world in itself, in a separate dimension and no matter how much we may crib about the traffic, the population, the stinking slums, the bureaucrats from mantralaya etc., we know that take anything out of the equation and the 'equal to me' part also disappears. Mumbai lives in the us, not the other way around.

I landed on 22nd august, a friday. As soon as i could see the rough outline of the city I wanted to dive down and kiss it. I was sitting, no, occupying an entire row of the aisle seats and there was an empty window seat right next to one, where a girl was sitting and she was amused to see a grown up guy sticking his nose to the window and kissing it. Anyway, then the plane landed and I made my way to immigration which is where i got to know that I'm in india. While asking me what i was upto in the UK for the last 2 years, the immigration officer was pondering overmy student visa, which had expired in 2007. After passing that desk and walking towards the exit, which is all but a 1 minute walk, I had my passport checked 5 times by constables from the ever dependable mumbai police. The customs made sure that a zippo lighter and the extra booze and cigarettes i had with me were confiscated. I was allowed 2 litres of alcohol and 200 ciggs. I was carrying double the quantity but had the cash to pay off the duty, but apparently that is out of question with the indian authorities. So after losing stuff worth 60 pounds I got out and felt like I had somehow been teleported to a traditional North Indian wedding, complete with marquees et al. However soon as I spotted my friend, N, waving wildly towards me, I knew that it was indeed the International Arrivals section of the Chattrapati Shivaji International Airport, Mumbai.

As soon as another friend of mine, B, turned up with her car and we were all set to go, riffs started playing in my head, photos of days gone by flashed in front of my eyes! I was absolutely loving it! The stray dogs, the flies flying over open gutters, mini traffic jams where no one was ready to give the other any space... everything!! I WAS BACK !!!!!!!!

My friends took me to a very conspicuous little joint near Lilavati hospital, which served delicious paneer rolls and brilliant fruit juices. After eating one and half rolls, rehydrating myself with 2 glasses of nimbu paani with mint leaves in it and smoking the best cigarette in the world (Classic Milds), I got moving again. My house had been locked for 2 years and the keys were with one of our acquaintances, so I went over to their place to pick up the keys. After dropping my luggage, I went to my house. As soon as I entered my colony, I was greeted with the ever smiling face of my north indian watchman, Pandeyji. "Bhaiyyaji, do saal se diwali nahi diya hai", was the first sentence that came out of his mouth, which is normally hidden beneath his enormous moustache. After reasoning out with him that I could not give him "diwali" because of the small fact that I was NOT living there for two years, I finally opened the lock and entered my house. The whole place was in a mess, rain water had sneaked in and the floor was thus blackened. The house was moist and there was that fungal stench that you get on the beaches during low tides. Anyway, I went upstairs to my room and reached for the one thing I have longed for more than anything else in the last two years, my acoustic guitar!! I tuned it in no time (yeah, a lot changed in the two years that passed, for one, I've become a good guitarist) and was ready to rock the town!

My college friends were supposed to meet up for a regular daaru party and none had a clue that I was in town, except one, P. We decided to meet in front of Nerul station. I went there with my guitar and waited for him for about two hours, during which time I received a lot of curious looks which all seemingly asked the same question.. "Saala, can he even play that thing?? Ya phir item kaatne ke liye taang ke ghoom raha hai?" Soon my friend turned up, at about 5:30 pm and informed me that the gang is going to unite at about 11:30 pm!! So for six hours, I belted out songs one after the other while P, who is musically illiterate and completly oblivious of the fact that such a brilliant guitarist was sitting in front of him, went on and on about a wide array of issues. We discussed life in London compared to that in Mumbai with Wonderwall playing in the background and the communal issues of India when I was playing Jimi Hendrix's Purple Haze! So after six hours, I had learnt that Jesus had lived and died in India, that Islam is actually a way of living, not a religion, that SAP is the best thing that ever happened to the software engineering world.. and no, he still was the same, musically illiterate!!! grrrrrr...

At 11:30 another of my friends, J, showed up and that was it for me!! I could'nt tolerate another 6 hours of nonstop nonsense and decided to make a move to the chindi bar, thats what we call the place, where we get cheap booze all night!!! We got there and 15 mins later the gang showed up and the drinking session started with tales of adventures and misadventures we all had had in the last two years coming out one after another.. Soon I realised that two of my friends, who were quite close to each other, had actually fallen out and had never met for drinks since! There is a special thing about completing your engineering from Mumbai University. You get pissed off easily soon as you get drunk. Most mass brawls erupt as a result of someone's binge drinking. Anyway, the guys were eloquently describing each other's activities with colourful adjectives like Madar chod, bhen chod, laudu, gandiya etc etc.. Soon the fists started flying and the rest of us had a hard time separating them. The party dispersed after that and we went to another friend's place to camp there for the night. I was shit tired and emotionally down to see my friends fighting with each other and just dozed off.

I woke up the next day, 23rd, with people asking me what my plans were and suddenly realised that in all my excitement, I had forgot to plan my trip, so basically I had the time and knew the tasks but didnt know what to do when!! One thing that I knew for sure was that I needed time and enlightened company to sort myself out. I called upon my school friends, all of whom are as intellectual as I'm, and we did what any other intellectual in such a situation would do, drink alcohol. At the end of the 2 hour session, during which so many anecdotes were shared (none of which are coming out here, bros before hoes :-D) and we made plans to make sure jc eloped with his significant other, I was singing loudly, terminator was sitting on a chair and was being looked after the hotel's guard, jc (most sober of all of us) was sitting and verifying the numbers on the bill, and mr writer was puking on the pavement. I cant quite say if he was sat on the pavement or was lying on it, but I have a graphic memory and somehow whenever I recall that incident, I picture him lying on the pavement puking! So there you go mate, you can add that too to your long list of drunken adventures!! We drove home after that and dropped jc home in between (which somehow I forgot). Terminator and I were not sleepy and after talking to writer's mum for 30 minutes I was pretty sober too, so we decided to watch The Transformers. Writer meanwhile caught on some sleep and was snoring heavily. At one point of time I thought that Optimus Prime had a *khurrrrrrrrr* in his name, till terminator pointed out the original source of the khurr..

Writer woke up when the movie finished and then us three sat discussing various weird topics and then suddenly I remembered that jc had come drinking with us and wondered of his where abouts! Anyway, the conversation drifted towards relationships and terminator mentioned of his dilemma which drained every bit of alcohol out of my and writer's brains. I'd like to write it here, but then its a bit too pyschotic and explicit to be written anywhere!!

Thats how 23rd August ended!

24th began in the most typical MU Engg fashion, we (me, writer and terminator) didnt sleep at all. Or perhaps we slept for about 2 hours. Then we had hot awesome aloo paranthas made by writer's mum, which was followed by a trip up the parsik hill to the spot just above the income tax colony, where we have hung numerous times before! It felt awesome to stand there again, in falling rain, smoking a cigarette, after a HEAVY breakfast. Oh all the while I forgot to mention that terminator had just had a laser surgery, to get rid of his glasses and was wearing kick ass black sunglasses to cover his eyes, hence the name, terminator. Anyway, we dropped him home, went to my aunt's place, picked up my luggage and came back. We got ready and stepped out to meet a friend of mine whom I hadnt seen since I was in the 8th standard, Grawl. Grawl has this very innocent looking face and on the interior is a real maniac, atleast he used to be. We picked up grawl and went bowling where I could have even won playing left handed, with eyes blindfolded and my right hand tied behind my back. As we were sitting for drinks after the bowling session, writer and me were pondering over the "fucking chinki gymnasts, havent they got any bones in their bodies??", when after sitting quietly for most of the time, grawl finally decided to butt in, "whatever dude, but the toughest of them all is that rope with rings suspended from it. Balancing on that is hard because there are three degrees of freedom which you need to take into consideration." Yeah, me and writer also had the same thought, WHAT THE FUCK!

Then we went for this new movie, Mumbai Meri Jaan. It was about the 11 July 2006 bomb blasts and how it had changed so many lives forever. It brought back so many memories of that day and how I had missed one of the trains just because I wanted to smoke a cigarette with a friend. Mumbai's courage was under fire and it came out on top. People were again travelling by trains the very next day. I still dont know if they were being brave or were just too scared of losing their livelihoods.

The morning of 25th august was brilliant. I went to the bank to submit a demand draft and was promptly told in marathi by the man sitting behind the cash counter that my account had become dormant because of inactivity for the last 2 years!! It sounded like it wasnt a bank account but a fucking volcano, which is supposed to erupt money every now and then! I got out of bank and went to Bandra, to meet another of my 3rd standard classmates, V. She comes across as an obnoxious, loud female, who seriously has had some cerebral damage which was never rectified. V thinks that talking is her birth right and she must exercise to its full extent, making sure that you know her views on almost any topic possible! For the first time in my life, I found it hard to say anything in front of someone and those who know me will tell you that THAT, IS SOMETHING!!! V also has this major hearing issue and she misses out on half of the things you speak. Unfortunately, I too was having some trouble understanding what people say, espcially at the pace at which V talks. She works in the TV industry and I asked her about her latest TV show.
V- "Aanthva Vachan"
S- "Aanthva Baccha?? Is it something about lord Krishna??"
V- "Huh??"
S- "What???"
V & S- "Fuck that"

After having 3-4 hours of short conversations, all of which ended on a similar note, we decided to go for a movie, Bachna Ae Haseeno. Soon we met up another of our classmate, N, a very unassuming character whom I frankly couldnt recall at first and then I remembered, she was the only female who ever come over to my place to take some notes off me. We met two more of V's friends, who both agreed with me over V's mental state. Any questions left in my head about the same were dismissed soon as the movie started. V sang and danced on EVERY SONG of the movie, laughed at the jokes so hard that the couple sitting in front of her got scared. After enduring Ranbir Kapoor and V for 3 hours, we got out and quickly stepped in to this pub called the Red Box for a couple of drinks. V had called another friend of hers, who was a model for TV and print ads. She was sitting nicely smiling at me when I suddenly yelled, "You are the same female who cleaned a WC with Lizol wearing a doctor's apron!!" That was to sum it up, the end of conversation between me and her, apart from some notes we shared on Caesar's salad. At this point, the quiet N ordered for two tequila shots and saved me from embarassing myself anymore. We all left after the drinks to our respective places and I decided to drop anyone who was game enough to travel in the same rickshaw as me. N came along and I dropped her, but not before we sat on the pavement in front of her building, surrounded by stray dogs and half asleep watchmen, discussing her relationships. It was, as they say, picture perfect.