Trip to Mumbai
I don’t believe that Mumbai is a city.
I don’t believe that the word “city” captures the pulse of the phenomenon that is Mumbai.
I have not been to Mumbai many times, nor have I stayed there long enough to pass a judgment, but whatever I have seen of Mumbai makes me believe that one cannot describe Mumbai just as a “city” or for that matter a metropolitan .
New phrases/terms have to be invented to describe the magnitude of its importance, the sheer geographical reach of it, and the zillions of people who throng the local trains each day, round the year. Be it 6 in the morning, or 1 in the night, I have not seen Mumbai relaxing, in a state of somnolence, but rather always in state of turbulence, always busy in some or the other activity.
Whether one considers Colaba, or Dadar, or Kurla, or Bandra, or Andheri, or Borivili, or Malad, or Panvel, or any part of the fabric Mumbai, each one appears to be a self sufficient city in itself. It takes around an hour and half to come down to the South Mumbai ( CST, Churchgate) from the northern areas and other extremes. The time taken to actually reach your destination might be quite longer.
For a person not from Mumbai, it is simply amazing that even after spending 2 hours on trains, or on road one is still in Mumbai. The people are always in state of motion, the local trains keep on arriving and departing at/from a station, and it appears to be a “mela” 7 days a week, 52 weeks a year. The only time when one can say that Mumbai has slowed down is after 1 in the night; the story again continues from 4 in the morning.
Mumbai amazed me the first time I went there, and it has continued to do so each time I have been there
Mumbai has a mesmerising effect on me also....There is something in this place which energizes and inspires you. A person no matter how slow he or she is becomes lightening fast as soon as he/she comes to mumbai....The spirit of mumbai is amazing..I too have fallen in love with this city!
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ReplyDeleteIts a well known myth that IIM A is the best management institute in India but what people often leave out of the race is IIM-Mumbai (the big brother of IIMs). Every moment spent in Mumbai is a lesson learnt. Let it be the local train map, moving about in the city, traveling through the crowd or just plain survival. Mumbai is considered to be on the coast of a sea but on the contrary it is a sea per se. People in myriads comprise this sea.
The mere process of getting into and out of a local train and traveling from one station to another teaches you excellent management fundamentals. Time management, corporate communication, marketing or finance every lecture can be attended during a journey.
I don’t think it is proper to term Mumbai a city. It is a universe in itself comprising of water, earth, sky and most importantly PEOPLE.
In a nutshell my experience with the city taught that life is process not a destination and so is learning. "With every push you learn something new."
kalyan..nice description!!! but wat i wud request you to do is put up a special blog for southern part of mumbai , coz thr r few adjectives which are common b/w south mumbai and other parts of the city. Askng u coz fr obvs reasons u r a better writer......nd yes... plz dnt revert 2 me askng 2 read "shantaram" to reduce ur burden of wrtng d blog.
ReplyDeleteCheers
ashish dhagat