"This is why I love to fly Indigo" I wanted to tell RGC when our flight took off in time from Bangalore airport. But RGC was busy checking his girl friend's message on his Motorola, so I kept my joy to myself. Contradictory to the Indian low cost airline industry traditions, we took off on time, but we never reached Mumbai on time and had to hover 1 full hour waiting to get a spot to land on the Chartrapathy Shivaji Airport. Anyways the time was a not a total waste, there were 2 good air-hostesses who provided us enough motivation. :) Finally our flight landed and I got the first glimpse of the "City of dreams" (Not first really, I have being to Mumbai airport and Kalyan railway station earlier during various journeys).
It may be because the landing was well ahead of my daily bed time (1:30 am in the morning) that I felt like those millions who comes to this commercial capital to realize their dreams. The city has something magnetic within it which tells you "Live your dream, I will help you realize your goals". Even at 2 am in the morning, the city was bustling with activity; Dev had no problems in finding us a restaurant to eat and a auto to take us to powai, his home. 3 friends meeting after 2 years, that night we never planned to sleep; we literally re-lived our hostel days; hours of chatter which ended at 7.
After our really late brunch(we woke up at 2pm), we started our expedition of Mumbai- the 1st thing I wanted to see was the Mumbai local trains - the lifeline of Mumbai, the fast and efficient transportation of Mumbaikkar. The station was an experience in itself, the place didn't look overcrowded the way I expected; but 2 minutes before the train came there was an avalanche of people which virtually annexed the platform. The train came right on time and I didn't have to do much, the crowd took me to the nearest car and within no time, my friends and I were standing inside the coach. The best part I liked about the system was the sense of lawfulness that existed within that system. There seemed to be an unwritten law which guided the system inside the car, like for eg. the rule which said that the nearest man was entitled to to sit when a fellow passenger got up. If you violate it, be ready to be subjected to the rage of your fellow passengers.
The train took us to South Mumbai and I saw 2 historic architectural splendors - The Gateway of India and The Taj - pristine as ever, little did I then know that the superb structure is going to subjected to some fanatics ire soon. We took a battered boat from the dock near the gateway and was on our way to the Elephanta caves - an ancient group of temples build by the Silhara and Rashtrakuta kings. I was overwhelmed by the extent of effort and perfection put into these statues; it is said that it took 400 years to build the full temple which has been build by caving the granite of the terrain. It is said that the generations of sculptures were born and dead here; monomaniacaly engaged in building these artifacts for their whole life.
The next day, we decided to explore the new Mumbai different from the ancient ones the previous day. We started with the malls of Andheri and after roaming around for hours exploring the cosmetics and baubles of consumerism, found ourselves in front of a theater which promised a 4 D show. I couldn't stop wondering how did this theater guy find a way to invent a projector which will project the images in Minkowski space instead or Cartesian coordinates. So out of our amusement, we decided to try it out and believe me it is worth the money you pay for it. The 4th dimension turned out to be the feeling sense as the logistics in the theater will create around you the same ambiance which existed within the screen. A rainy weather was mimicked with a few sprinkles of water and an underwater expedition with bubbles all around the theater.
The 3rd day was insipid as Dev had to fly to Ranchi for some work and I had the S.P.Jain interview to attend. Finally it was time to get back to the Garden city and we chose to fly Jet this time which reached Bangalore 2 hours late. But I really didn't care, I was not really keen about attending office after such a journey. I would have loved to spend my time reflecting it on my bed.
