Monday, September 6, 2010

Mumbai meri jaan...

Yeah!!! I know there are hundreds of articles and blogs on India's entertainment capital Mumbai! But this blog is all about my experience with Mumbai. So here we go...

Before I came to Mumbai for the first time, of course I heard lot about this great city, about the traffic, rain, local train, marine drive, polluted juhu beach, and lot more... Surely my mind has drawn a picture (actually a terrible picture!) of Mumbai with the brush of my imaginations. So with that terrible picture I reached Mumbai by Train. My friends, with whom I was supposed to share a flat, instructed me to get down at Dadar station.
Actually once I came to Mumbai when I was a kid, and I knew there are lots of local stations in Mumbai. So the moment, train reached at Borivalli at early morning. My anxiety started and I was looking at all the station's name with an eagle eye(I was wearing spectacles, that is my eagle eye!). Finally after half an hour  my train reached to Dadar. I was all ready to face the challenges of Mumbai. I hired the famous black and yellow taxi(my company was going to pay so I was not worried about fare! ;) ) of Mumbai. I was supposed to reach at Airoli, Navi Mumbai. I thought that as name suggests Navi Mumbai must be a very good NEWLY developed area, and would have nice locality and tall buildings and so on. Yeah, another picture of NAVI MUMBAI with my imaginations, but the thing was this picture was really good one!!! Anyway, I reached Airoli and saw those old tenements whose color was green due to those dirty green fungus on the wall, and that REAL picture of Airoli, Navi Mumbai broke the UNREAL picture of my imaginative Navi Mumbai!

That house was really horrible, but still I stayed there for two days as I had no other option on hand. I decided after two days that, I am not going to stay here at all! I told my friends that we are an SAP consultants man, we can't stay in this antique house. We'll search a new flat. But as I stayed there for two days, owner was not willing to leave me easily even I was ready to pay for those two days! Anyway my friend Manish came to rescue and had fight with that owner and I finally left that fungus full and stinking house. As there was no other option on hand, I stayed to my one of the oldest and best friend Parth's flat. From the other day, me and my friends Manish and Sahir(Junior Colleagues :) ) started searching for flat in Airoli. But surprise surprise... that day we all came to know, we are criminals! How? because we were "bachelors"!!! (I used "were" only for me, my two friends "are" still bachelors! ;)) Wherever we go and ask for flat on rent, the first thing people said, "No Bachelors, only married couple or family". What the hell! Bachelors are criminals or what? And very first time we all understood the value of "wife" in our "life"!

Anyhow my past life's good "karma" helped us, and finally we found one really good flat(there are no "quotation" so it was really nice flat! :)) after continues efforts of 15 days. Finally we shifted to our brand new really good flat and I started living with my new roommates Mr. Manish Hadiyel and Mr. Sahir Vhora.

Our flat was quite near to the office campus and we had company bus also, so we did not need to use any public transport. Due to this reason, even after staying in Mumbai, we were not actually living Mumbai!

Even my office team was good too, Mahesh(ganni uncle), Amol(bottle), Rajasekhar(paper), PradeepA(mota), Abhishek(ravan)! I am writing this at the moment and I can't stop myself laughing hard remembering those days. It was full on fun in office. I felt like, I was living the college life!

And at home, after staying few days with my roommates, I was sure that Mumbai life is going to be full fun, laughter riot and unforgettable. I tell you, Manish and Sahir are the guys with whom no one can stay low. These guys rocked our home by their funny jokes and masti. One more interesting characters became our very good friend was Mr. Dev! He was teammate of Sahir, but he mixed up with us so well and he was damn humorous. In fact, we all were humorous. Apart from me, everyone had amazing ingenuity which makes you roll on the floor laughing like anything and I am like Navjotsingh Sidhu, who can't stop laughing once started. The only difference between me and Sidhu is, I do not act and I actually laugh! :) And of course how can I forget Rajbhai and Varun too! Oh my... I am just remembering that time and my heart is filled with full of joy and happiness.

Now after these laughter riot weekdays, here is weekend. My fiancée-Darshana was also in Mumbai that time. :)))) But but but... she was staying in Goregaon East, which was almost 30 KM from my place. Travel from Airoli, Navi Mumbai to Goregaon East was real test of mine in Mumbai! I had to take auto from my home to Airoli Station, get a local for Thane, from there Dadar, from there Goregaon Station and from there take an auto to my fiancee's place! Woohhh... It was real test of mine! Initially I was feeling real hard. Eventually I found BEST bus direct to Goregaon. Anyhow slowly I started loving the local trains. Of course I was travelling for my fiancee, so I would definitely love any damn ride. But still there was something that, I started loving about local trains. Once during Navaratri, I was travelling at 12:30 in the night towards Thane. You can't even imagine the crowd at Dadar station. It gives you an impression that, its just 7 in the evening! There was not enough space to stand even in the train. I thought, this city REALLY never sleeps!




I visited almost all famous places of the city like Mahalaxmi Temple, Haji Ali Dargah, Gate of India, Hotel Taj, BSE, Marine Drive, Juhu Beach, Gorai Beach, Bandstand Bandra, Elephanta Caves. It was such a great fun travelling by local trains, BEST, Taxis and visiting all these places. All are such a beautiful place! And even some Mumbai special snacks are also mouth watering. I loved specially misal-pav. Above all I loved Manish's Bhaji-Pav. We still tell him that, buddy you are in wrong career. He should be chief chef at 5-star hotel.

I am simply in love with this city. And again that imaginative picture of Mumbai broke, and wonderful unimaginative picture of Mumbai got place in my heart instead of my mind!

Definitely, it is not easy to live in Mumbai, you need to be ruff & tuff, but Mumbai is the city where you would love to live hard!

Sunday, August 15, 2010

What can you do for India? - 2

Exactly one year back, I started writing my thoughts into blogs. Last 15th August, I thought "What can I/You do for India?". I thought everyone should stop complaining about all other things and we should start doing small things to help India. So have I started anything? Yes, I have started doing some small things like not to throw garbage anywhere but only in dustbin, not to break traffic signals, not to waste water as much as possible, put my vehicle off on cross roads, gave little donation to NGO to make India a better place to live in.

I am sure, such small things surely will help a bit to make my country better place to live in. I do not want to blame my government for the drainage system blockage when people around throwing plastic and other garbage on road all the time, which in turn blocks drainage system. Take your own responsibility rather complaining and talking big. I am sure, I can still do lot more things then this and surely next 15th august, I promise myself, this list will have more things in it.

TALK LESS, DO MORE!

With this "small" message, Wish You All A Very Happy Independence Day!
Love you India.

वन्दे मातरम्

Sunday, June 20, 2010

My Amdavad!


We all love our home town. The place where we are born and brought up, where we passed our precious childhood playing in the streets, where we stepped in to real world of challenges, obstacles, success, and failure from our imaginary dreamy world of thoughts. I too love my lovely home town and that's my pride possession Amdavad (Ahmedabad)! The metro city and one of the biggest city of India. Amdavad is in the Gujarati language.



Whenever I think of Amdavad, one word comes to mind is "Aho!". Aho in sanskrit means "How wonderful this is!" Aho is expression of amazement and satisfaction.


I'll take you through small historical information of Amdavad. It was founded in 1411 by Sultan Ahmed Shah. "Jab kutte pe sassa aya, tab badshah ne shaher basaya!" This is how we know Amdavad. This city is basically divided, by the river Sabarmati, in to two parts Navu(New) and Junu(Old) Amdavad. Old Amdavad is famous for its heritage architectural history like Sidi Saiyad ni Jali, Julta Minara, Tran Darwaja, Jama Masjid(Mosque) etc. and New Amdavad is famous for its modern multiplexes, shopping malls and parks. 


There are some top ranked educational institutes like IIM, CEPT, NID, MICA, Nirma University situated in Amdavad.
Why I love most Amdavad is because of incomparable mouth-watering taste and variety of vegetarian food. I would say, it is heaven for vegetarian people. Honest's Pavbhaji, Vijay's vadapav, Karnavati's dabeli, Charbhuja's sandwich and Sankalpa's dosa and panipuri on every cross road! Yummy Yummmm! What else you want man! How can I forget Khadiya na Bhajiya and Das's Khaman! Here sitting in Kerala - 'God's own country', this is what I am missing badly my foodie Amdavad. If you go out on weekends, all Amdavadis will be out to enjoy and eat all kinda foods. You would get "houseful" board outside every restaurant. We amdavadi may found talking about hygiene at home but when we go to any cross road, surely we eat that Bhaiya's PaniPuri with extra masala in it! :-) 

Amdavadis enjoy each and every festivals with full enthusiasm, specially it's famous for Uttrayan. Whole Amdavad stays on terrace for two days 14th and 15th January, and we are really crazy for Uttrayan. Diwali time all gujjus prepare hundreds types of snacks and sweets at home and exchange with each other with love.

Another thing I've never seen in any other city, I have been, is that, Amdavad is really safe in terms of roaming at nights. You'll easily find an alone lady roaming at night 11 or 12 in Amdavad. Nowhere else it is possible.  Really Amdavad has its own style! After staying out of Amdavad for long time, just thought of Amdavad is enough to turn me on!

Amdavad has been passed through tremendous changes through out the time span. Wherever you go in the world, you never get that "Aho" except Amdavad.

Love you Amdavad and now in the land of Rice - Kerala, miss you most!

Friday, June 11, 2010

The Political Party with just Human Values!

Politics, very heavy word!

But, some simple questions to all of us about politics!
Is politics a bad thing?
Is politics all about corruption?
Is politics for bad people only?
Is politics just about great power?
Is politics just to earn illegal money?

Hmmm... all negative questions for "Politics"! 
How this negative image been developed in our mind about politics? Because, that is what we see all the time in politics! 

Politics actually made up of Parties and their workers. So can't any political party be 100% corruption free? or can't any party really be secular and give equal importance to all religion and all people of the nation? or can any politician provide service to nation without any selfishness?
All these heavy questions attacked my small mind! Obviously my mind needs some answer...
So what can be done to remove this garbage from politics and to come up with "pure" politics and I came to this thought...


"Political party with human values and politicians with humanity!"


The party and the politicians, who does not work to fill their pockets with people's money or does not try to make side of any religion. It just works with human values and thinks with humanity. That's it!
 If politician thinks with humanity, surely he/she can lead the country to heights of success by all means.


Hope my imaginative thoughts take their wings and come in to reality soon! 

Monday, March 15, 2010

Dowry

Payment of a dowry, gift—often financial, has a long history in many parts of the world. In India, the payment of a dowry was prohibited in 1961 under Indian civil law and subsequently by Sections 304B and 498a of the Indian Penal Code were enacted to make it easier for the wife to seek redress from potential harassment by the husband's family."
          You might be thinking after reading the title, who is taking dowry now a days? But friends, right now I am residing in Hyderabad, and what I got to know from my local friends, that dowry is still being taken by boy's families. And all most 99% of young boys support even the same, saying that "It is just one of our wedding events, and nothing wrong about that!" When I asked, how much dowry you guys actually take? And answer was beyond my and your imagination!

Before this I got to know about same thing from one my marathi, and  friend from UP also. I was so shocked that, dowry is still going on in India and that too badly which sometimes lead to self killing!

Just before few weeks, I read one article in newspaper about suicides happened in 2008-09. One of the main reasons for this was "Dowry". So what can you or me do for it? Just make aware people around you about, how serious legal sin dowry is!

I really believe, at least young guys, who are well educated, should stand among their families and take an initiative not to take dowry and ask their parents also not to commit SIN!