Mumbai... the city of dreams.

Sitting at Marine Drive... staring at the New-York esque skyline on one side.... the occasional noticeable sound of the soft waves crashing below. The casual laughter, the dismissive words and the silences that capture everthing else.

A million words woudn't capture the Marine Drive evening.
................

Its a stunningly beautiful city. The problem is most of the people living here miss that fact regularly. Its crowded and humid and a ride on the local trains can be a horrendous affair but the traffic is worse. I was stuck for almost an hour and half in traffic on my way to office one day.

Work is HECTIC. I work approximately 40 hour weeks. I leave in the morning and return twelve hours later, minimum. Almost 2 hours are spent commuting. The first week was fun. It was interesting to see almost every co-passenger wearing a fancy ear-gear plugged into their cell phones, busy listening to the radio. Many have the Agent Smith sort of earphones. Its wondrous seeing all these these techno savvy people. The sheer volume of people going to work is mindboggling and i guess another noticeable for a bangali here is that everyone here sticks firmly to their 9-5 timings. Infact the 5'o clock deadline is invariably pushed back further.

The site I'm in charge of is located in poshland- Lokhandwala Complex, Andheri. Its home to music directors and most recently Manoj Bajpai! Flats here are easily worth in crores. Mumbai gets you used to talking in crores.

Mumbai has its share of interesting people. Kamlesh, the guy incharge of the site before me, seemed straight out of the Munnabahi movie. The talk, the walk... everyday he'd ask me if had set my eyes on any "item" yet. We were incharge of the site together for a week, and everyday there was some interesting funda about life in Mumbai. Even taxi wallahs havent refrained from sharing their bits of advice on the city.

The most common refrain is of how you can't leave this place once you visit Mumbai...
if only....