Once Upon a time..Part Two

Continuing Bombay tales, another aspect is the cleanliness and pollution. Every time I step in, its the same, open drains, awaiting whose fall no one knows. I mean, the ones near my house have been open, with "Under construction" written for the past 4-5 years!! And the atmosphere! Well fact is that breathing the air in Mumbai for just one day is equivalent to smoking 2.5 packs of cigarettes. Well in that case, all of us are big fat chimneys!.Even the once visibly lovely beaches have been turned into godowns of grime and filth. Blessed are we at NITK to have our private beach, which seems spotlessly clean compared to Bombay's beaches!

Advertisements have eaten into every free square inch possible, and all boards according to some government rule (which came in after a protest by you-ob-know-whom!)  have to have the name written in Marathi/Hindi, which at times makes it an entry for the Sunday Times "Signs of the times"!! Tonnes of them. Which isn't a treat to the eye exactly. But it is fun deciphering the English words written in Hindi.

 

A shop with A to Z..in Hindi - notice the top part - in Hindi!!

Another thing is the witty comments all over the city. Some of them, enumerated here

• At one of the bus stop shelters, a plain green board saying  - "What will Bollywood heroes and heroines run around in the future?", and below that, "Plant more trees. An initiative by Leela Group"
• IndiGo Air has decked a lot of their buses, BEST(Bombay Electric Supply and Transport) with ads overflowing with puns – "Fly the BEST bus, Airbus A320" and lots more. 
• On the airplane, stewardesses as usual kept wishing each passenger on their way out – "Thank you for flying with Air India". I couldn't hold it – just burst out laughing, when a passenger (guy) in front of me actually told the stewardess "Thank you ma'am for flying with Air India".
  
  

I also happened to see the Shiv Sena National headquarters. Just a small building, but the potential storm it can brew up in no time. Big things come in small packages. The guy who said it wasn’t wrong.

 

And it was a rather silent ending, save a quick trip to Fashion Street (with no problems in reaching there, unlike our NITK junta!) , The majestic Taj, Gateway of India, Siddhivinayak  and a few other iconic locations. Otherwise, the weather prevented any other activities, as the sun was laughing in glee, sadistically. Its cruel weather. Really c-r-u-e-l.

And special mention to Ayush Nanda here. While I was in Bombay, got to know that he'd cracked the CLAT. A national rank of 46. Massacre. Congrats man. NLSIU is waiting!

And thus ended my trip to Mumbai. The reclaimed piece of land is today India's economic capital and is growing at an exponential speed. Some decentralization is needed. One can't keep stuffing a plastic bag beyond a limit. A pressure reliever is required. And that too soon.