Fury, fright and failure

I have always respected the city I belong to. Always loved every bit wholeheartedly.
Some say I ain't a Mumbaikar coz I reside at the other side of a bridge,
Some say I can't be one coz Marathi isn't my mother-tongue,
Some say that being born on this land plays a role in belonging here..

I've never cared about such trivial things and always been passionate about the awesomeness of An Awesome city.

But today, my heart cries.

I've already expressed whatever I felt like saying about the attacks on My city. Today, I just want us all to take a minute and analyze all that we are losing in this never-ending war for peace. I am saddened by the fact that innocent college/office-goers pay the price for loop-holes in the administration.

Dear Terrorists,
I admire your ways of planning and execution. Next time, please bomb the good-for-nothing politicians. You shall make your point with a greater impact and the ones at fault shall be penalized.

Sincerely,
An average Mumbaikar.

Do I not belong here anymore?

It smells a little different in here
not like it did when I had left
the fresh calm is no more in the air
Now it is stale, almost suffocating.

The furniture has been moved, I notice
The lock to the main-door is changed,
A gleaming new washing-machine has replaced
the cabinet that held my belongings.

I can't figure out the keys
Neither the switches to the fan or light
There are marks on the wall that did not exist
New frames that I have never seen before.

My room looks familiar though
Nothing has been touched since four months ago
Still somehow I feel like i'm sleeping on someone else's bed
Hogging on someone else's space.

This someone else is me that I was back then
Carefree, Teenager, Thoughtless, Easy;
The someone that I have become now
Nomadic, Over-Planned, Measured, Mystery.

Both are strangers to each other.
She belonged, I don't feel the strings attached,
She just spoke, never thought,
I think and sometimes, never speak;
She flew, she wrote, she laughed a lot
She trusted, I don't;
She loved, I won't.

It's almost like I don't belong here;
I hate to admit but I'm jealous of her
Not very long ago, she was me
And now, I am someone I don't want to be.

Mamma-Papa are the same though;
some wrinkles are new, some kilos here and there
But its the same warmth that I used to feel
when I was she.

I'll always be their princess maybe
Always, the little one
So coming to them will always be like
coming home, whichever house it might be.

Different cities, different ways..

I always heard that India is 'diverse'; Now I finally know what that means..

Moved from,

to


It took me about more than a month to get used to the ways of the new city. Considering the fact that both the cities have very different history, this was expected. What makes it complicated is that the concepts that are just normal here are considered hilarious there and ways of life there are plain weird here. 'I' meanwhile am stuck between the places and trying to hunt for a midway.

Like, if you named a part of the city as 'High-tech city' in mumbai, people would either die laughing or simply change the name; and the same thing in Hyderabad is, 'cool' :-| I'm yet to know what is so high-tech about the high-tech city, the rocks are pretty authentic though..

The kinds of clothes I wear were never a matter of concern for me back home. Here, if i leave the room wearing shorts, the amount of staring is unbelievable! I try and wear 'full' clothes and even a scarf [for the sun] to just complete the burkha effect! My normal hairstyles are now 'fancy' and my sense of style is 'fashionable'. I get compliments thrown at all the time and more than making me happy, it ends up making me uncomfortable. Weird, very weird.

Oh, another thing..
If I come across a random guy in Mumbai, like the auto-walah / shopkeeper types, and call him 'bhaiya' it is supposedto be very offensive! I've called such people as 'uncle' all my life; and now if I call them uncle, I get a sly smile quipped with "Main aapko uncle lagta kya madam?" :-| Yeah, thats Hyderabadi hindi for you :-|

The local trains are replaced by MMTS, which suck
The Vada Pav is replaced by Dal wada;
The Cutting chai became 'Special tea';
Running to catch train has become cycling to class;
Super heavy showers shrunk into occasional drizzles;
DPs Restaurant has become Gopal shop;
Mom-made food is now putrid mess food;
Shivaji Park beach is now Peacock lake side;
The Biggest party ever called 'college' is over..
and campus life just happened!

Am I not happy?
No. There is not much to be unhappy about. The University is the best, facilities are bestest ever, people are kinda decent, my faculty is super-sexy and I've decent number of friends..

Then why am I whining?
I have my first internal exam this week :'(

P.S. Bharath is the only person in the university whom I knew before I came here; and as always, its FUN to meet blog-mates! :D

My City is burning

And that makes me cry.

Never before in my whole life
Have people endlessly messaged me to "stay put"
Has an exam being canceled coz its NOT SAFE TO TRAVEL
Has the first local not run
Has the BSE be shut in the mid of the week
Has firing occurred at CST in the mid of the night
Has Times Now not delivered live news
Has My City waited patiently for all of it to end for fourteen hours
Have 11 locations under the arms of Mumbra ma been directly affected
Has The Taj breathed smoke
Has Hemant Karkare, Ashok Kamte, Vijay Salaskar and 8 other Mumbai police personnel not fought back
Have we seen people carrying hell lotta ammunition and shooting indiscriminately
Has the posh-est part of my city felt fright
Have people being butchered like animals
Have some 20 odd lads
affected the life of a regular mumbaikar

I have failed to understand
failed to find words
failed to calm down.

Why has My City being taken so much for granted?

How much do we have to pay?

When can we finally be free?

The mumbai chills......

Temperatures in mumbai falling below 10 degree celsius? Something i couldn't even imagine up till a couple of weeks ago. Well now that it actually has happened, i was thinking how to deal with it. Because, mumbai is NOT ready for it. I for one, am absolutely not ready!

Early morning, traveling through train, i realized how relevant this was. All people in their costume to beat the chills; sweaters, shawls, etc. etc....n me? in full-sleeve [good for nothing] chiffon clothes. And as i don't have too many of them, [and i don't do my laundry regularly] after 3-4 days, back 2 sleeve-lesses and comfy [ha ha!] cottons. I hate sweaters, and hate is not a word i use often. Also because it takes me time to get accustomed to new things, and when i get accustomed, there is no need to be used to it. Shivering top to bottom, as my clothes flew all over the place, adding to the cold; Me getting all numb [nose being the 1st thing 2 catch the chill]; People giving me dark stares; some wondering about my resistance, some about my stupidity. My body cells have become so hyperactive ever since, that now i get goose-bumps for absolutely anything!!

Don't blame me for it. How am I suppose to react if my city's weather suddenly decides to go to an extreme? No gloves, shawls, no suitable footwear. Thank-god i am used to wearing socks everyday!

Well, I blame the most heard term during summers, yes, 'global warming' for it. Lame men might say, good, its cold; helps fight against global warming. Little do they know about green house gases. Just because it is called "global warming", it is not only about increasing heat.
The earth has its own mechanisms for regulating the weather conditions, which are reflected by temperatures. These act by means of winds. If the mechanism collapses, temperatures will rise in summer, yes, but when degrees fall in winters, atmosphere is incapable of bouncing back to normal. How do I know this? AN INCONVENIENT TRUTH by Al Gore. And for people who say that temperatures of mumbai are going low perennially, all i have to say is this.
Temperatures in winters will fall, but in summer shall rise. And if it is falling below all expectations, yea, u guessed it right........
As a result, after a couple of years, we will be like, Oh! i just miss the ideal mumbai weather...
We shouldn't crib about it, I agree. All i have to say is, don't be ignorant either.

So what measures should we take against it? As of now, face the freezing colds, that is quite a big deal by itself.
And for the long run, [at the risk of sounding like a parrot] COMBAT GLOBAL WARMING!