The City that never Sleeps....

“Mumbai never sleeps”- One of the popular punch line of this city as it’s so common to see people roaming around the city even after 12:00 am and still you don’t see the crowd fading away till 2:00 am. At 1:00 am, it’s not uncommon to see people walking and playing around or waiting for their turn in a food joint to place the order.
It was my first few days of stepping into Mumbai and I was not expecting that the above mentioned line would be presented to me in such a weird fashion. One evening when I was returning from the office, I could see people gathering in the housing society to celebrate Satya Narayan Puja. After doing a brief prayer, I went straight to my room and that day I had to spend the whole night all alone as my flat mates were not there.
Suddenly at 1:00 am while I was in mid of my sleep, I heard the sound of my doorbell. I thought I am dreaming and ignored it but then the bell rang once again just to make me realize it’s not a dream. This time I was a bit nervous as I knew it’s definitely not my roommate and this made me wonder who it could be. There were two thoughts running in my mind. My Cautious Mind was telling me not to open the door but my Curious Mind wanted to know who is at the next side of the door? I followed the later and went to check from the peephole. I saw two boys in their teens are standing with a container. Now this added to the suspense and I wanted to know why they have come at this time. So after gathering some courage and holding my breath, I slowly opened the door keeping it half closed.
Before I asked anything to them, one of the boy handed me a small polythene bag by saying “Satya Narayan ka Pooja ka Prasad” and they went away by saying “Sorry Ma’am, thoda late ho gaya” . I did not know how to react. I felt like someone has just turned me from the character of Sherlok Holmes to a naïve who has no idea what just happened and I went back to sleep thinking-if this is “thoda late” then what time would be “jyada late” ?

Cook is the King !

I wanted to write this long back of one of my memories of my stay with friends cum roomies in Mumbai. One day we all decided to hire a cook so that we can have proper homemade food and don’t have to spend time on cooking activity. After some search, we managed to find one. She was a young, married, lean presentable lady (must be in her early 30s). We were quite happy to have her(only on first day as later we could hardly see her as it was more of her absence rather than our presence in the house). After some negotiation, we had a pact with her that she will come everyday in the morning to prepare meal for us but to our dismay, she could be with us only for few months with less than 50% attendance in each month. So we used to check with her the next day for the reason for not coming to her workplace i.e. our house and the excuses she used to give us were as follows:
1. I could not wake up early in the morning. (One of the most common reply which she often used to say)
2. It was cold in the morning so could not step outside. (You know Mumbai’s Cold)
3. I lost my phone. (Whose phone was she using then?)
4. Had to attend the funeral of this and that relative……. (Some of them died twice)
5. Someone in the local train stabbed me with a knife and I fell on the Platform and got senseless. (Shall I believe this?).
And the height was –She asked us one day if we can wake her up in the morning by giving her a call so that she can come. This time we were half senseless.
All these lame excuses by her used to make us wonder- what would happen if we come up with the same thing in the office for not coming or reaching office on time….