Maximum City

"Tujhse hai zinda yeh dil ka shaher ..rozana rozanaa ... "
This is what Bachchan sahab is singing right now and am thinking not about my dil but the shaher, that is this Mumbai. I know googols of keystrokes have been keyed for describing this metropolis but still its vastness and bhaagti jindagi never ceases to invite thoughts.

I had been to Mumbai earlier during my college days but it was a temporary sojourn always, so the city never looked the way it did last year in June when I knew the stay is going to be longer than a few years (2 years of MBA + dunno how much more). The entry of our train into Mumbai, I think just before Virar, reminded me of the entry of hogwarts express into the clouded and spooky mountainous terrain of Hogwarts (Please don't chuckle, I didn't make this up just now.Try coming to Mumbai in the rainy season around June and you would know). Hogwarts it is not, but the college is a lot green and musty thoughout the rains.

The experience of local trains, lifeline of Mumbai, is a learning in itself day after day. There is a large group, amazingly women also, who love to hang on the railings of train compartments, even if seats are available. Am not sure if they are planning out Abhishek and Aishwarya's wedding or thinking of Shilpa Shetty's troubles , with the air gushing wildly through hair they gaze incessantly into the horizon. I can not dare comment on those who are sitting on roof tops. Each local train is carrying at peak hours what seems to be a million people in the 12 dabbas. The people in trains are either happy or just plain expressionless. Not sure what comes first, the quest for survival or finding happiness in small things in life or may be there are perfectly intertwined. In the lives of a majority of Mumbaiites, am sure one can not separate the moments when cribbing for good life (comfortable travelling to work-place is one important parameter to good life I think) yielded gradually to condescending existence.

One can see an excellent juxtapositioning of contradictions on local stations. The bottom 2 feets of walls and footbridges is reserved for 'rang de lal' cadre of paan / paan masala folks and on the other hand are shiny white glittering posters of Kumkum and Dulhan TV sops. I am sure earlier generations of pan masala chewing people in order to try out some newer dart boards would have tried spitting on the hoardings as well but due to awkward results of such an exercise the posters have stayed enviously white and shiny.

Once I was amazed to see two middle aged men coming back from office in the local, sitting close to each other and singing. When I took a seat next to them what I heard was not at all possible in any other city except for our Filmy Mumbai. Each one was having a book of lyrics of Mukesh and were very intently singing the songs with passion and once a song was over, they flipped pages and had quite a discussion on what should they pick next.

The life and the thoughts do not end here and am sure Mumbai will bring in lot more ... to this blog and to life ;-)