Mumbai Slice ... Part 1 - Standing alone.

Kripaya dhyaan den, Borivili ki dheemi local aaj platform kramank doh ke bajay platform kramaank theen se rawana hogi.


>yawn< Churchgate station 8:00 AM, 20 Oct 2003 Need to go to Andheri ..... I was standing there like boy being pushed into his classroom on the first day of his school life. This day was no different for me. My very first day in BBBBBBBBBBBBBOMBBBBBBBBAY well, Mumbai. Butterflies in my stomach, some of which I never knew existed,started their navratri garbha. People around me moving like a 1940s Dandi-march video. 2 people pushing and shoving into a train door enough for 5 people to simultaneously walk-in comfortably. Shoe wallas tapping their shoe boxes in rhythm adding to the clamour were the hawkers selling the world for a paltry sum of 10 Rs. A chugging local every mintue and the best of all the seat reservers


Mumbai, for me, a city of filth, a big gutter with gushing black thick liquid, sorry! ahem, the Mithi river, smelly groves, mosquitoes, and the smell of rotting hmmm ... cant categorize this smell sweat, shhhh*t, industry waste>yiltchk<. The stench, strong enough to kill all the butterflies within me let alone my stomach.

I was slowly coming to terms with getting into one of the Biggie Software cos of India. This was my first day. Reporting 10:30, in one its plush n' lush campuses for the joining formalities. Rest of the morning went in savouring the pleasurable sights smells (esp in the morning on both sides of the tracks) and sounds of this humongo-polis. They gimme a joining date of 15 Nov 2003. My slice of life called Mumbai Slice starts on the Day prior the 14th.