And my stay at Mumbai comes to an end in a short while. I am surprised that I am keen to go back and resume with academics in Nasik. Quite unnatural really. In a way, I feel I am missing my course and friends. Having said that, I know you don't make real thick friends in a span of a mere two months.

Mumbai was so particularly pathetic and nice, just as it ever is. Traffic jams, randomness in honking, humidity, packed local trains, smelly armpits and chameli ka tel ladened heads, pan stains all over, insane amount of spitting and that too on your head or foot if your back luck is terrific real bad on one such occasion ( this has happened to me once). Mumbai has a fair share of illnesses, caused by its very own people.

Mumbaikars are blessed with a lot of things a mumbaikar can't really forget or possibly stay without.
They could be as follows:
Cutting chai, Band stand, kanda bhajiya or a vada pav and samosas, corn bhutta, bhurum maska & bun maska in the railway canteen or an Iranian restaurant, a football game in the rains, cricket on a concrete pitch with a wet rubber ball, radio stations for housewives, idliwallah on Sundays, a nice little doze on the hall sofa with your head on a cozy pillow and a comfy kambal (Solapuri chaddar) to cover you while it rains outside, double omlette with ketchup and some bread, maggi and that too a double pack, a romantic book and preferably of Nicholas Sparks, a repeat telecast of yesterday's Wimbledon game, a miscellany of cultures, communities and thereby ideas, Kanga league on Shivaji Park, Azad and Cross Maidan, a front seat with a front window on the upper deck of a double decker. And there are many more I can't actually recall or may be haven't experienced.

You can enjoy all these things else where too. But for a mumbaikar staying outside Mumbai for varied reasons, he can't really feel, any where else than Mumbai,  the Mumbai spunk that is a constituent in all the above mentions.

I may have been a bit indulgent on what I feel about Mumbai. But then that is exactly what Mumbai does to me.

GOOD BYE Mumbai for a short while. I will be back there on the 1st of September. Ganesh Chaturthi.
Ganesh Chaturthi, the brass band entry of Ganesh Idols and the dancing, the gulaal, the ukadiche modak, the patrolling by the police, the visarjan at the chaupati. Ganeshotsav in Mumbai is complete awesomeness.

LATER.

MUMBAI BLUES

I got back to my home after about a month. Sister and my brother-in-law had arrived earlier. They were surprised to see me at the door with my heavy baggage and all. A small light joke on them, coming from my mother.

The dinner was, as usual, spot on. The delicacies cooked by my Mother T were Waran-bhat-aamti-bhaaji-poli-koshimbir. And to add some spunk to the already smashing treat was the serving of a huge bowl of   refrigerated aamras made from the home made palp of the Devgad hapus mangoes. To hell with the possibility of loss in nutrients and all, due to storage of foodstuff for long. Anything that is served on my plate by my mother and then that which goes in my Brobdingnagian and equally insatiable stomach cannot be ill-nutrient.

So all was well by then. My mother T had just finished asking me, the 928933th time, if my roomies smoked or fuddled. My father discussed with me about the Djokovic-Nadal final. He is a Federer fan. So, like most of the Federer fans, he had turned into a Djokovic fan, by default, that Sunday. My brother-in-law and I had a brief but pertinent discussion on the sex ratio of my MBA class. We also discussed films. I told them that Bal Gandharva was the only meaningful and worthy film I had been to, since in Nasik.

And my sister, construing that  the topic diverted to films, out of sheer and characteristic enthusiasm, told me about the death of notable actor Rasika Joshi. It shocks you, such news, at least for a second, especially when  the dead person seems real fit and fine the last time you saw the person on a chat show or in a movie. A few are destined to die young. Few achieve a lot in their small time period on earth, as if they almost tacitly know they have a short period. Example in such case is not restricted to Rasika Joshi. Dewang Mehta, Malcolm Marshall, Divya Bharati, all belong to that category.

Whoever out of those Junoon guys wrote these below two lines was spot on..

Kya bashar ki bisat  

Aaj hai kal nahin.

(Mortal's presence is so fickle

 Here one moment and gone the next.)

While I mention this, I know a part of me is sad for the death of some respected person. 

While I wonder if i should ever blog about it even. And in turn, spread the sadness. I intent not to, though. 

Chod meri khata 

Tu to pagal nahin

(Leave my follies 

 as you are not mad like me.)  

And I don't even want to talk about those fucksome blasts. 

LATER.

I AM VERY MUCH ALIVE ON THIS BLOG

It is that time on the earth when everything is meant to be a real crooked affair. It is the time on the earth when you can’t really act straight to a particular situation and if you happen to act straight, I bet you’ll lose upon a lot of opportunities. It is a time when every goddam thing is meant to be real unfair.

Haven’t blogged in a while, but promise a better job at it in future. The last time I blogged, blogspot.com had this REDIFF-STYLED-HTML-THINGY getup. This new scenario looks slick.

Well... LATER..