At first sight, the city appears to be nothing but a mass of
humanity running in various directions with myriad purposes and at varying
speeds. There is a sort of slow motion scene where everything slows down when you
notice something beautiful and the next moment you are pushed back into reality
and into the same throng of people you noticed as you stepped foot into
economic powerhouse of an island.
The people, the lights, the noise, the smell… it all feels
unrealistic and in a vague sort of way, a bit like what it would be like living
inside the world of ‘The Matrix’. But here, people are controlled traffic
lights, trains signals and numbers that go up and down at the Bombay Stock
Exchange.
In Bombay for a week, probably half of my trip was spent
travelling, thanks to the vast size of the city and the distance between
places. Here is how the three T’s convinced me that the only way I’m ever going
to Bombay again is as a tourist and nothing more.
Trains
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| Image Courtesy: Google Images. |
The sheer number of people at any local train station
startled the wits out of me and I’ve hung on to the side of a public transport
bus many a times in Ahmedabad, where buses are tilted by the sheer weight of
people hanging out the door. So you can imagine when I say I’m not easily
overwhelmed by crowds. Of course I’d heard stories of Bombay’s population and
its load of transportation but living it was more than I bargained for when I
said ‘Aaj kuch toofaani karte hai’.
Added to the general discomfort of having to smell other
people’s armpits and a whole collection of perfumes, the menace of having to
deal with eunuchs is an ever present threat while on a train in the city. Of
course, then there is the fear of getting thrown off the train or finding that
your wallet has been picked off while you were trying to hang on for dear life
while simultaneously avoid throwing up on people who will probably actually
throw you off the train for doing that.
But, the trains do get you where you where you need to go.
The problem is not the destination, but the journey.
Taxis
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| Image Courtesy: Google Images. |
I don’t mean to generalize here but taxi drivers are
everywhere have the tendency of doubling up as tourist guides and showing
outsiders the sights of the city even if it takes them out of the most direct
way to your destination. The difference is that in other places you might not
have to pay as much as say… the railway ticket from Gujarat to Goa to go from
Bandra to Andheri.
While I was there, it was imperative that there was a
functioning GPS in at least one phone to make sure that we reached the
destination without having to write out a cheque instead of searching for loose
change to pay the driver.
The good thing however is that taxi drivers actually follow
the rules and don’t seat more than four people in the vehicle but that’s
probably because the traffic police take their jobs very seriously there. And
yes, taxi drivers will not always turn down the meter when you tell them your
destination. They will first think about it and then they can and probably will
refuse to take you there after much deliberation, leaving you stranded with on
the road with the knowledge that three other taxis already passed you while the
driver was making up his mind.
Traffic
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| Image Courtesy: Google Images. |
For those of you who live in a city not as big as Bombay,
you have to see the traffic to believe what I’ve experienced. I’ve seen traffic
jams as long as half a kilometre or more but the situation in this city is
altogether on another level. Lack of sleep and excitement at wanting to explore
the city meant that I slept more hours in a taxi than I did in a bed in the
span of one week. Unbelievable? Believe it!
And this is just the situation on normal days. Weekends and
matches at the Wankhede stadium take this madness to extremity. God help you if
you are loathe to walk, because there is absolutely no point travelling by any
sort of automobile when Bombay gears up for the weekend. I’m sure that an
aerial photograph of any intersection or Chowpatty beach on a weekend will show
up as an ants nest, it’s that bad.
And yeah, good luck getting anywhere on time. Not going to
happen.
But unlike Gujarat, where everything needs to be done with a
straight head; in Bombay, tequila is happy to help. Yeah, that said, ‘Don’t drink and drive’.
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