MUMBAI ahoy! - Far from the maddening crowd?

My experiences as a helpless commuter in aamchi Mumbai.
For those who have been in this city for some time in their life, you'll know the perspective. :-)

Chuchgate Railway Station, Mumbai
Monday (yet another office-day) 8:50 AM

As I got down from the overstuffed compartment and set my feet on the Churchgate platform #2, there was a sense of exhilaration - mission accomplished (for the day)! I had successfully managed to board a 8:15 Churchgate fast from Andheri without getting my shirt and glasses too much out-of-place, and had managed to get down at my destination still in one piece – a rare feat indeed. Did someone say, practice makes a man perfect?




I look around, and i see another train coming into the adjoining platform. It stops and eeks out thousands of commuters from its 'belly' into the platform beside. This made the otherwise broad walk-way a real difficult stretch to pass.

And I walked.

Around me were faces - thousands, probably millions of them, walking in the same direction towards the exit, as expressionless as one could get - no different from robots, functionally programmed to go through this task on a daily basis. Each one eager to reach the target - the subway that would lead them out of this gigantic railway-station!

As everyday, I wished for some miracle that could get me 'Far from the Maddening Crowd'!

I remember my mother telling me years ago that I was 'one in a million'! Looking around the millions of 'robots' walking beside me, I do realize that she was right....
:-)

Food for thought !

I've always been a food lover - a sucker for the culinary delights! Maybe an understatement, this, but describing me as: 'a gluttonous freak who loves to devour most things edible on earth' wouldn't be too far from the mark.

Ok, maybe not 'most things edible on earth' but you could easily term it as 'most vegetarian stuff edible on earth'. This wee bit of correction is due to my newly found love for the items of the herbivourous kind - seeking to abandon meat altogether in the new future. PETA must be happy! :-)

But somehow, living alone as a bachelor (or sharing acco with friends) and working long hours at 'office-sweet-office' ;-) inevitebly makes one indifferent to one's gastric temptations.

Either you tend to 'forget' about your eating cycles during your busy work-hours @ office, or you tend to conveniently ignore them b'cos of lack of good places around to eat. I mean, how many days can you live enjoying the 'Food Court' meals, which, otherwise, are not such a bad deal, if you look at from a hygiene and taste point of view!

Really miss those days back at home town Baroda, where mom's food was taken for granted and eating out meant simply callin up friends, kick-starting your bike, and riding down to the decided eating joint. Jalsa karo doston! Now we realize what we'd left behind.. sadly!

Bottomline, nowhere can you replace MOM'S food !




Sadly enough, my eating habits nowadays have been reduced to somewhat decent lunches at office and then some tit-bits when back at home for dinner, read: Maggi/instant-pasta/wheat- bread/milk/fruits conveniently juxtaposed with tomato-ketchup, chips and stuff. Not a very complete' meal this - and it doesnt take a Phd. in Food & Nutrition to figure out that.

The point is, I've still been surviving. And, surviving well!
My slowly increasing belly (read: healthiness, as in - khaate peete ghar ka ladka, he he) is proof to this. Oops, o that is again a result of loooooooong hours at my office-desk. Can't help it.

Time to take a break! Have to go for my next cup of tea. My dear office beverage machine,
here i come!

Next time around, about food in Bangalore, Hyderabad, Mumbai (!!), Kolkata and of course,
dear old Baroda.