Life on a Mumbai Local

Mumbai local trains can make a man out of you!!! Not that you will lose your precious cherry. That will be awkward, messy and invite the ridicule of many. It will make you a man by getting you a black eye and a few battle scars on your face. It gives you lessons on aggression, discipline, basic recklessness, advanced foul language, impeccable punctuality and an unhealthy disregard of stench.

This is how the story of my first ride on a Mumbai train goes. Two of my friends and me hop on a train first class. We had bought tickets which are worth 9 bucks each thinking those were first class tickets (FYI, First class tickets are worth 40 bucks each). As our luck would go, the ticket checker also got on the train and we were his first meal of the day. On our first ever ride we ended up paying a thousand bucks as fine.

After I got myself transferred to Mumbai I got the true experience of a Mumbai train. I generally take a train from Vikroli station to Dadar where I take another train to reach my destination. So one day I end up taking a train whose last stop was Dadar itself. When we were about to approach the station I head towards the exit and stand by it acting like a ‘true Mumbaikar’. I didn’t even bother to notice that the other people had suddenly huddled near the other end. I also didn’t bother to notice that the platform was unusually crowded with people waiting to dash into the train. What happened next will be easier for you to visualize if you have seen this common scene from every zombie movies possible. Here it is,

There are innumerable zombies (People getting on the train) trying to barge through a narrow door to grab the hero (me) and the exhausted and disgusted hero (still me) is trying get out of their clutches. While the heroine (other fellow passengers waiting to get down) just smile at the hero’s foolishness.

Trust me, it is that way. Not that I couldn’t have avoided it like other passengers of the train who safely huddled in the other end, made their way out after the carnage has subsided. But then it is a part of the learning process.

It is definitely a funny sight when you see these people getting on a train. Of course you have to be anywhere but not on the train to enjoy the sight. Sometimes it gets so crowded that while a man is somehow standing by the door holding a pole, another man will stand behind him holding his waist with toes barely on the door’s edge. After sometime hanging by the door becomes such a habit that even if the train is empty with places to sit all around the only man on the train will stand by the door.

Now days, even I get off from a moving train just before the mob barges in. It does save me a whole lot of time and I also have an actual first class ticket now.

I AM BACK!!!!!

(Heh!! I always wanted to say that)

It’s not like my last trip to Goa was so traumatic that I decided to stop writing. That has been put away long back and another trip is already on the cards. The last few months have been a bit crazy for my laid back standards.

After spending a whole 7 years living like a hippie and making my kidneys go through all sort of gastronomic experimentations I decided to call it a day and head back Mumbai where a very cheap and therapeutic spa called home was warmly inviting me to experience its goodliness. But then how could the supreme forces have let me just have what I wanted. Being generous is really not their forte, is it!! So I ended up facing the apathy of the guardians of my “9 to 6” universe. All sort of alibis failed to persuade those cold hearted devils. Taking cue from others I started to earn myself some leverage against them and after 3 months of struggle I finally got it and predictably was transfer to Mumbai immediately.

So now I am in basking in the glory of the persistent rain, humidity and the stinking trains of Mumbai. It’s been a bit difficult fitting into the city’s vibes, but then this is what I asked for.

But on a brighter sarcastic side the world has hardly changed in the last few months. The TV still sucks, may be a tad bit more. Batman is still my hero and source of entertainment. Good book stores are still hard to come by. People are too snooty and honk a lot. I am still single much to the dismay of my mother and suspicion of my father. Parents don’t realize, the world is a boring place for the really really smart.

Goa gone wrong...

My second Goa trip turned out to be quite an experience. It was a peculiar mixture of high hopes, “on your face” reality, small instances of relaxation and a disappointing but relieved return.

I guess Goa is all about excesses. It’s so full of it that at the end of the third day you just want to run away from the very reasons you are here for. Today I hate lazing around, beer and that god-forsaken psychedelic trance. Oh!! And skimpy Russians too. The place got vacation written all over it. Forget the tourists even the locals are laid back and seem to be having the time of their life. It’s so easy to find a bike on rent even without a license but it’s just impossible to find a decent doc in the middle of the night. Now if that’s doesn’t make a place a vacation spot then I don’t know what would!

Coming to the trip, it’s quite easy and depressing to summarize. We reach there Friday morning and started scouting for a shack where one of our friends got bitten by a dog twice. Needless to say we enjoyed that a lot! Afternoon was spent in one of the innumerable shacks where surprisingly the food is actually good and gulping down King’s, The sunset took us to Curlies which is an isolated shack playing psychedelic trance. The place was filled with the new age hippies mostly from Israel and Russia. I guess they were looking for spiritual upliftment in the Goan trance (The DJ seemed to be playing tracks from pirated CDs but then most were too high to care). A while later, I find my dog bitten friend hopping around with a sprained leg begging to be taken to a hospital. With that my vacation ended. After getting him checked out by a Doc in the middle of the night, my entire trip was like taking an elder to Tirupati. He always needed a shoulder to hold while limping around and sadly he couldn’t walk on the sand. Next two days found me wishing for a quick exit to the beautiful normalcy of my office.

The last morning before we left seemed to be pretty uplifting and the fact that I was finally leaving in the afternoon actually let me have a good time. Goa in the mornings seem to amazingly charming. Especially, the interior country-side which I never find anyone ever talking about. Riding through winding roads going up and down and seeing the Portuguese houses tucked in every corner what as relaxing as sitting by the sea.

But undoubtedly that trip was the saddest trips I had. What hurts more is that it was to Goa. A better trip is certainly on the cards. This trip certainly made me sit up (while waiting for the doc to wake up) and think up some must dos and don’ts about trips. More on that in a later post.

Who deed this tiepo??

We all make typos. People write dude as dudo or please as peas. But we only laugh at the guy who writes droop as drool. The delicate art of good typos require a healthy disregard for proof reading, a sloppy attitude, a sense of humor showing up at the inappropriate times and also pinch of bad karma. Everyone does it but only the clumsiest masters it.

My first embarrassing encounter with this concept was in one of my English classes where the teacher was reading out a report of mine to the class, aloud. Somewhere in between the passage the line went like this, “Under the scorching summer heat, the farmer’s buttocks (read as bullock) were put through unimaginable hardships to satisfy the landlord’s greed.” Needless to say, it was well accepted by my friends. Since then there was no turning back. Nearly every line in my chat conversations has a typo. Every blog of mine are proof read by people from as far as New York. Yet the lesson is yet to be learnt.

Corporate typos are in a different league all together. Here one wrong move and you lose all the respect you have earned through the years. But quite of then can out a smile on the receivers face. I was once describing a error in an IM conversation to a guy in Denver and then said,“Can you help me with this tissue (read as issue)?” The guy aptly replies, “Isn’t the problem potty-trained?” But people can be ruthless too. Once a not so liked entity mailed colleague of mine saying “where are the rest of the packages? Find me the hole (read as whole) thing.” The barrage of jokes which sprouted out of that was pretty nasty.

Then there are the ones which you see on the road, which are due to complete ignorance. But the funny is the wrong spelling is write spelling for something completely different. Check out the snap of this cobbler's stall. That guy got some explanation to do.

Lucky are those who just get to laugh at someone else’s typos. But of all those awkward situations we get into, they do make a not so great article worth reading.

There I go again..

Was on my long way down,
In the stuffy & sweating elevator.
The door slid again gallingly,
And she beheld my eyes.

White shirt, denim skirt
And brown streaked tresses,
The charm of her fragrance
Could dent even a queen’s allure.

As she stood there staring
At the ever sliding numbers.
I looked for an alibi to talk
How I wished the lift had got stuck.

But our trip ended like any other
And she just walked away.
I wonder was that love. Damn!
There I go again……..

Can you read the line???

That’s what was asked to me the nth time by two different opticians in one week. I don’t remember ticking off any member of the Optician’s Union. Yet they seemed to be hell bent to make me miserable. I have been made to change my glasses TWICE in a week and yet the optician has failed to provide me with glasses with correct specification. Now, having headaches all day and seeing stars instead of pretty ladies pass by has become part of my usual day. A weekend visit to the optician earns me the assurance that “the glasses they have provided are fine”. That actually is a subtle way of them saying, “The damage is done. I can’t admit the mistake as I might get into trouble. No free replacement for you. Adjust Madi.”

Anyways, after two days somehow my eyes have learnt to decode the stars and ignore the headaches. But a word of advice, “Always get your eyes checked by a reputed guy and make sure that you are careful to leave nothing to be read between the lines.”

The Advisory Mishap...

“It’s just not affordable to go by someone’s advice now days”, said a friend few days back.

The guy does have a point. There are some of us around who can’t decide anything on their own and always looking for counselors. But the problem is there are just too many people with too many advices. Whom to follow to and who to disregard has become a chore in itself. What’s more perilous is the fact that people have somehow learnt the art of pretending to be an expert when they actually still are the same old letdowns. A few days back another friend proclaimed himself to be a “genuine” geek. When asked the reason behind his observation he self-assuredly replied, “Because I still read Comics!!!” How can just reading comics make someone a geek I fail to understand? Anyways that’s just a “not damaging” instance of these breed of glory hunters. Then there are some who go around saying “Those who can’t do, teach.” thinking that will get them some credibility. Nice way of glorifying being a jack!@#!!!

Coming back to the point. Staying clear of such people is an important aspect of the eternally confused man’s life. To even hear the ubiquitously wrong advice which, he will definitely follow is a straight road to the gallows. Now what’s worse is the fact that even he wants to learn the art of pretending to be the ever confident man. Here comes the main drawback of being the confused man. When he gets an advice he can do two things. He will reject them to show the world that he’s not gullible. Else he can accept them because, well he always has an unbearable need of the advices. But how does he decide which to take and which to reject.

Does he need to be advised even on that?

Well, Life certainly is full of ugly loop holes.

Protecting mobiles for Dummies....

It’s official now. I have been formally inducted to the hall of fame for the thickheaded.

The reason??? I just lost an ipod and a mobile in a span of three months in a busy BMTC bus. This time it happened even before the bus started to move. I wonder is it just me or the thief was a pure genius. Also I just hope it wasn’t stolen by the same thief. That might just catapult my sluggish reputation to levels never seen on earth.

Anyways a swanky new mobile and two days of visualizing the thief as one of the victims of the psycho doc in the movie ‘hostel’ has soothed the wound quite a lot. The only problem is that a crowded BMTC bus will keep on giving me the creeps for a long time now.

The Credit Card Debacle...

Few months back I had this embarassing conversation with my dad which I remembered a few days back. I had uploaded my CV on a few job portals, while searching for a job. After a month I got selected in Accenture and shifted back to Bangalore. On a Sunday morning my dad calls me up and what was said between us is as follows:

DAD: (in a very serious tone) Hey, How’s your training going on.

ME: (in a very bored tone) fine.

DAD: I wanted to talk to you about something.

ME: what is it?? (Gosh, hope it’s not about investments again!!)

DAD: I just received my credit card bill.

ME: So

DAD: There is an entry for Bharat Matrimony.com.

ME: (WHATTTTTTTTT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!#*%#$#*#^%$#%^&)

ME: That’s not me. That can’t be me.

DAD: (now in a very fatherly tone) you should have at least talked to us. You know we always support your decisions even though this is a bit too early.

ME: (agitated) aggggghhh!!!! There is nothing to talk about. There are no decisions to take. Dad!!!! I seriously have no idea about this.

DAD: Then who else would want to get married in our house.

ME: How should I know? (He did have a point)

Suddenly I realized about the online transactions for the job portals. I checked the net and it turns out that both the sites belong to the same company and they charged using the matrimonial site’s name.

On explaining this to dad he gave out a sigh of relief and said,” Well that resolves it. Anyways, now that you have a job, next time you decide to get married, kindly use your own credit card.”