Mumbai - meri jaan

Around the world in 80 days - nice movie - aptly applies to my current lifestyle. I have been in Mexico, Chicago, Poland and Germany (albeit in transit) in the last 60 days. I have new best friends, my VIP suitcases, which I'm literally living out of now a days. After all these travels, yesterday I landed back home. I live in Bangalore , but for me, Mumbai is home and will continue to be so, as long as I can imagine.

It is a city of extreme extremes, contrasting contrasts!

There is really nothing that is pleasing or aesthic or polite or genteel about Mumbai. It is one of the most crowded cities in the world. It stinks, people are always in a rush making them naturally rude, is the headquarters of D-company, Chotta Rajan gang and numerous underworld business organizations which are the main source of inspiration for aamchi Bollywood, especially Mr.Ram Gopal Verma. But there is no place I would rather be than Mumbai. I really like Europe and in my last trip to that continent, I even liked Poland - one of the main reminencent centres of Nazi terrorism. I thought I was finally getting over Mumbai.

I landed in Mumbai, yesterday morning. Air India landed in the international airport and we had a free 15 minute bus ride from there to the domestic airport which we Mumbaiittes instist on calling Chhatrapati Shivaji International airport. I was in a rush to reach my client's office and didn't have any time to be nostalgic. However on my trip back home in the evening, I listened to the 3 radio stations in tandem, taking in the rubbish churned out by the RJ's as if they were the most sensible pieces of dialogue I've ever heard. It was so comforting to hear a continuous blast of DhinChak muzik...I sat back in my auto and relaxed that I didn't have to fight over the fare. I sat back and enjoyed the traffic knowing that there is some order in the chaos that is Mumbai. When I was nearing Ghatkopar market (for the uninitiated - a middleclass suburb in Eastern Mumbai), I started revelling in the enticing smells of khau galli, the sights of fresh vegetables other than cabbage and beans (which is all that I keep getting in Bangalore), the colourful display of the latest Indian fashions and fake international designs, people randomly crossing roads, pandu hawaldars (traffic cops) who in comparison to their counterparts in Bangalore strike terror in the heart of Mumbai ever speeding motorists.....the essence of Mumbai. I could feel tears waiting to jump out of my eyes - a K3G tune in the background and I could have recreated the 2005 Mumbai floods.
I realised Mumbai is me...I could be anywhere in the world, I could be away from Mumbai for years but I could never be anything but a Mumbaiitte.... a tough from outside, struggling to survive Mumbaiitte.