Continuing the Mumbai journey...

Hmmmm…so sits been a long time, sinces I updated my blog..two months in Mumbai and just one post, not fair!! So, less than two weeks left now…things must have definitely changed or let me say, improved, since I last wrote about Mumbai.

I am sure many people must be happy to see the word ‘improve’ above…yah, I don’t dislike Mumbai as I used to do in the starting….and now the three of us have even started liking our PG, specially now when we have the whole place to ourselves, as the land lady isn’t there..cool, isn’t it!! But once you have to stay its not even that cool..specially when you have thousands of ants all around, but I must say the ants of Mumbai are highly skilled!! Can you imagine ants coming out of a close packet of maggi, inside the lappy or worse still from inside your cell..yes, the ants out here, have made one of my friends cellphone their home :)

So, now I have a number of observations about the people, city which might be useful, for people who decide to visit it in future…First and foremost, the sense of distance of the people out here is really weird..no offence please!! But if you are new to the city you will definitely agree to me. Just ask someone “How far is this place??”, if he/she says its just next by, say a two minute walk…I can assure you its not less than a 15 mins walk…like one day a place two buildings away turned out to be a 20 mins walk..its not happened once, but several times, rather always…

Oh!! And Mumbai is so damn crowded…u go to any restaurant, any place on any day of the week..and its always crowded…the city has soo many people. Actually, that’s not strange, the city is called the city of money after all…if you are one of those who hasn’t been witness to it, (though I seriously doubt that) don’t worry I have loads of snaps of that too..

Hmm..now what!! The office, of course. Hey office is a cool place, have made cool friends with the co-interns…the work is good and I must say primary research is a great learning experience, provided you get the contacts. Getting that is perhaps the most difficult!! And working in itself is quite different, though college life has its own fun!! Am sure, all the working people out there must be missing their college life!!

Oh!! How can I forget to write that…my sim card connection actually has very poor services..can u imagine, someone says, ‘your sim will be activated (pre paid) only when you give me a Mumbai address proof’…now when you have come to Mumbai for only two months from where do you get that, but isn’t that weird..atleast I had heard this for the first time, nyways now I have stopped bothering about that…so would just say Airtel rocks!! Because using that on roaming is cheaper for me, compared to the new sim I had bought!!

Since then I have seen quite a few more places, but the other day when I was talking to someone, I realised I have hardly seen anything..because all the places that person named, I hadn’t visited, some I hadn’t even heard of..so lets see how many more I cover in the remaining time, which I seriously doubt as there’s gonna be loadssss of work..but I must say Marine Drive is the best!!

Hmmm towards the end, I would say Mumbai is not that bad..but I still don’t love the place either :) but the experience has improved from the start…though anytime I would say Lucknow or even Delhi are much better…Guess I don’t have much to write now, so would just end hoping these last two weeks pass even better

Down the Mumbai Lane...

If you ask me one line on how I find Mumbai, I might just say….’I don’t like it at all’…not very surprising! Infact, many people I know, feel the same, they are just waiting to go back…be it my friends of IIML or my co-interns…so what do I attribute this to…my first four days in Mumbai, when I was without any place to stay, the crammed spaces out here, me losing my cell, falling ill, etc etc…
But let’s just go through the journey…I landed in Mumbai, perhaps with a lot of apprehensions…mainly about how will the city be and other such things, but most importantly how will my internship be..but I had never even thought of what happened later…we reached the PG we had got booked for ourselves at Marine Lines, and we are given a room which is of the size of a store room with 5 beds and connected to another room, so effectively it was a 13 seater room with no window!! and I thought ‘Oh God! I don’t want to stay here…rather I can’t stay here’ but since we dint have any option we left our luggage, paid the security and then began our search for a place to stay…but all efforts in vain..we went to various places, contacted hundreds of people, but still couldn’t find a decent place to stay. But among all this one thing I was sure of, I can’t stay in that PG. we went back to it in the evening, fought with them, got our money back and finally stayed the night in a hotel…so the next three days went like this: going to office in morning, all tensed bcoz we dint know where we’ll stay at night, after office searching for a place to stay, and then landing up in a hotel at night, where also we used to get a room after pleading a lot!! In the meanwhile we had seen hundreds of places to stay, but each with its own set of constraints… So, how did we finally get a place to stay??in one of the most strange manners! We were at a restaurant cribbing about the acco, since I had just returned after travelling 3 hrs and seeing 2 more places, and as usual neither of them was decent enough..so there was this uncle, sitting with his family in the table next to ours. He offered us to stay at his sister’s place, which was in the same area..we went and saw the place, though it was not anything great, but still decent as compared to the places we had seen..and since we all were fed up of searching for pgs and hostels, we just opted for it..and now I am staying at this so called ‘flat’ in a chawl…so this was how Mumbai welcomed me!!and I am sure I have left out lot of minor things in between, which had added to our frustration… So, how’s the experience been till now??its been almost a month, since we came here..hmm…ill say not so good! People want to get out of office, and relax at home. But all the interns, at least at my office, stay back late, many times even have dinner there, coz they dnt have anything to do back at the pg. Working everyday till around 8 in office, then back to the pg all dead tired! And in no mood to do anything! Thankfully, we found a decent place to eat, so dinner isn’t a problem. But on weekends, its so hot here, it becomes just impossible to stay!
Now, after 3-4 days had passed since we had found acco, how could things remain normal! Something had to go wrong. So this day I was going to office, got down at office, and as soon I reached the gate, I realised I had left my cell in the taxi. I ran back, even chased the taxi, by another one…but of course, dint get back my cell…and when I returned back people just said ‘Welcome to Mumbai!’ But at this point I would say that the journey indeed would be incomplete if I forget to remember some, who made me sail through it… Hmm…now lets get down, to the places out here..haven’t seen much as yet..went to Elephanta Caves, which again was more tiring than fun. Though I would say marine drive and chaupaati are nice places to roam around especially at night, you just need good company…Then, there are indeed nice places to eat, although they make sure that a large chunk of your pocket is emptied out there. Infact, you tend to empty out your pocket a lot, just sit in a taxi, and the meter runs faster than the taxi itself! So, Mumbai has ensured that most of us are out of money and I am just waiting, to get my first salary, oops ‘stipend’….salary milne mein to abhi time hai! Oh, that reminds me, of my office!! How can I miss writing about it..I spend 10 hrs *x 5-6 days in a week out there…office is a nice place…the first day went all in induction, and there was an elaborate dinner, which I had to miss, again bcoz of my acco problem. But anyways, work is nice, and should get more interesting now, with primary research in! We are 11 interns out there, which is good coz u get good company and friends.So, I guess, I have written quite a lot! Can’t write more now…enough of Mumbai..so, what next?? Another one month of summer training, daily up and down, and surviving in this hot n humid weather! And mom keeps saying, enjoy and see places..so in all probability going to north side this weekend, let’s see how is it!
And, if any asks me would I work here or come here again, my first answer would be a BIG NOOOOO…..but lets see, how this one month goes…coz you never know what’s in store for you!!