One of the netizen then posted on a forum that the results were out. This sent shiver down my spine making it even worse for me. Although I managed to get a passport for Bombay, but the chances of conversion were almost negligible. Next thing was to a call a friend in Ajmer and plan our visit together. He is as crazy about the city as I am.
I had been there with family when the city was called Bombay but what I remember of is just Chowpatty Beach and bus tour from Bombay to Goa. I booked the tickets next day keeping enough time to explore the city’s best places. This was the fourth time I was travelling on plane, still I wasn’t accustomed to air journey; one, for it drops us to our destination in just about 2 hours, two, we can’t just stretch our arms and legs on plane the way we can in trains. In a way, I don’t want to get accustomed to it. The first timer Rishab enjoyed the flight though.
The hot weather was very welcoming since Delhi had not seen the sun rays since days. Thanks to a local friend, we didn’t have to look for a place to spend our nights, and that too in the heart of city. We did not want to waste any moment of stay, so we boycotted our lunch, packed some necessary things and took the local to CST. Earlier, I was quite apprehensive about the local trains as Delhites are considered to be not habitual to the congestion of this sort on trains. But, it’s not as if only Mumbains have to face this. We can easily relate the Bombay local train rush to that in Delhi buses in office hours. Believe me, it’s my personal experience.
On reaching CST the first thing we did was get a map of Bombay and marked the major destinations we had to explore in coming days. Then started our pad-yatra from Dalal Street to fashion Street. Starting from the BSE, we reached the Gateway of India and The famous Taj that reminded of the recent attack here, still fresh in our minds. Any Indian would have a tear or two in their eyes on seeing the bullet marks on the gateway or the cordoned off area which gives the best view of the Indian ocean, where the film shooting used to take place. The pad-yatra resumed in search of the Leopold Cafe in Colaba, where we had ice cream shakes.
Not knowing where to go, as it was dark by now, we headed towards Fashion Street. On our way, we crossed the University of Mumbai, the Church gate Station where we saw a wave of people coming from nowhere as if they are a mob going to kill us for being northerners. Later we realized it was office hour crowd heading back their home from Churchgate, the CP of Bombay. The map we had indicated that we were not far away from the famous Marine Drive. So, at 8-30 in the evening we were there sitting at pavement and enjoying this awesome view of the sea, the rocks and the Bombay crowd, the thing which I never did in Delhi at 8-30 in the evening. This is why I like Bombay so much.
All this on the very first day, or should I say just in “An Evening in Bombay”. We headed to our hotel at 11 at night, another first. The dinner constituted of a couple of Vada pav from a food joint in a city that never sleeps, at least I didn’t see it dull any time. The second day was not as exciting as first, the big reason being last evening’s pad-yatra. The day began with a visit to Siddhivinayak temple followed by Haji Ali Dargah in the afternoon. Time spent at Carter road in the evening was amongst the best. I had never seen imagined places like marine drive, Carter road, Worli Seaface in my life time; wish they were here in Delhi, or I was there in Bombay.
The dinner at Only Parathas, recommended my foodie brother, made me forget about my interview the next day. After finishing off with interview in a quick time, I wandered around the college area to feel the college life of Bombay, and that too didn’t disappoint me. Evening at Juhu Beach reminded me of my childhood journey when I along with my brother and other kids made dome shaped structures of sand with straw on top. The sunset view was amazing. The only thing that troubled was we didn’t have a place to keep our shoes, so we had to miss out our bath in the sea.(Below is the pic of my friend Rishab with shoes in hand at Juhu Beach in Mar'09). As we went on to give our verdict on Gol Gappe Vs Pani Puri competition, we found there was actually no competition at all. “Gol Gappe” is the clear winner. When I thought the day was over, my brother came from Pune with different plans. At midnight we had to accompany him for the dinner and spending some quality time at the Worli Seaface.
Next morning was our journey back to home, this time via train. But before that was another surprise tour waiting for us. Nikki, my local friend, made our trip much more valuable by taking us to her college, one of the best Girl’s colleges in Bombay. Way back to station a quick stop at Gaylord’s (that reminds me how I and Rishab had laughed over the name at that time) gave us an opportunity to have a pastry of any flavour we wanted and yes, Keventers at CP was way behind this British era bakery.
Dasvidaniya Bombay!
Cricket game