About pathetic rooms and 7-Star views

Yesterday was brilliant. After living in a civilised manner for the past two months or so, going back to a hostel was brilliant. I had to meet a few friends from Indore who study in IIT mumbai. It was decided that I visit them on their campus , spend the night there and early morning we leave for marine drive to witness its much acclaimed sunrise. I whole hearted-ly agreed to this plan because well I was low on movies/ t.v series and a fully active DC is hard to ignore. 

IIT Bombay has terrible rooms. That delighted me, because they are much better back at BITS and that "I-always-wanted-to-be-here-but-ended-up-in-pilani" feeling quite definitely changes to, "Thank-God-I-am-in-Pilani" (yes, there were many other such moments last year, still)

Nevertheless, people there were quite chilled out. They offered me free food, so yes they were good. We went to hiranandani for dinner, which is pretty good too. It has this very western-country feel to it, besides we ate at dominoes; it is always a good experience. 

As it turned out, pathetic hostels were only for first and second yearites. Hostel-13, which was inhabited by third/fourth yearites( and a constant stink of cigarette smoke) has a brilliant terrace which has a lake-view(Doesn't sound that impressive? The same view is shared by a seven star hotel). We enjoyed the 7 star view re-collecting coaching time jokes. Yes, those two years were hell, but i realised it then, they are probably the only two years in my school life that I will never forget.  

Epiphanies and realisations were followed by some random movie and a lot of bakar. By the time all this ended, it was already 5, if we wanted to see the sunrise, we had to leave by this time. Discussing on the way if we would ever see sunrise on marine drive since it is the western coast(and sun rises from the east), we finally reached marine drive, half hoping we haven't missed it. We did. Nevertheless we did spot a t.v celeb. and if you are still wondering if you could see the sunrise at Marine drive, here is a pic clicked by some body who was not as unlucky as us.

The tall building on the left is actually a hotel and this thing used to rotate a long time back

and we spotted her:

She walks VERY fast

This is the 7 star view I was talking about.

  

  

The City Of Dreams

It is 12 in the night and everybody around is asleep. Well obviously I am not in my insomniac hostel. Its summer and so its home.

Home had always been Indore for me, for the past 17 years at least. Now that my family and so conclusively I shifted to (this 'magical' city of) Mumbai, changing the definitions has been a little difficult.

I look out of the window and there are hundreds of buildings staring back at me. The excessive light/smoke pollution has ensured that the only twinkling things in the sky are Aeroplanes. And there are a lot of them. Indore by this time is mostly sleeping. Or at least getting ready to sleep. But this freaking place never sleeps. Even now I can hear faint noises of cars honking. Maybe after a few hours too when finally people will end their work. And then of course there will be a new set of people starting their day: newspaper vendors, florists et al. You hear, 'life is a race'. Come here to see it practically. Race to catch the morning train, Race to get the first customer, Race to the top.


Come to think of it, the energy of this city is mind blowing. Nobody stops here. No you can't afford to waste all that time. There are hundreds ready to take your place; even if it is a corner of a footpath. The good thing is, this kind of brings in a lot of professionalism in the people here. They all strive to provide you the best of the services. You go to any shop, they will try and attend you as soon as possible and to the best of their abilities, something which was missing in Indore. There everybody was slightly chilled out. But in Mumbai, even if it is a vada pav seller, there are high work ethics.
(A quick tip: If you are roaming about the city and looking for a quick , cheap snack, do not think twice before buying a vada pav. Its six to eight bucks and its amazing.).

And they survive. For all the fight, for all the survival of the fittest, they survive. All of them. Once they come here, they don't leave. They survive in the toughest of the conditions. They survive with their house open to the  ogling eyes of the local trains and to the sewage water. Standing in an 'office-rush' filled evening local seeing the still lingering smile on the regular passengers chatting up with there 'train friends' I wondered what keeps them going.

Dreams they say. I welcome myself to the City of Dreams.