Once upon a time in Mumbai.....

You know you must have heard like a million stories about Mumbai and I am writing one of my own. They say you fall in love with the city, but I am not sure that’s how my story began. Having arrived at Mumbai on 10^th April, 2011, the weather was fucking humid. At that point I thought GOD!! The stay will be painful; Bangalore was so much the place to be. Fortunately I didn’t have to go through the trauma of finding the accommodation for myself; Reliance was benevolent enough to provide one for me. All I cared about at that time was to have a nice cool room, who the hell wants to see the city anyways. When I reached chunnabhatti all I could see was ramshackle houses and for a moment the thought of a fucked up accommodation did panic me. But the fortunately the Reliance guest house was like an out of place architecture there. I heaved a sigh of relief and also happiness because they were providing immaculate facilities for dimes. There were like 45-47 interns staying there, 5 from my college itself and rest from other IIMs, XLRI, SIBM and NMIMS. But I was never a people’s person so the huge group was irrelevant.  I had my room partner as katti (billu balatkari), so I was quite sure that the two months here will be peaceful (however I later realised that katti did came with a lot of ambitions and targets in mind of course not work related)

The internship began with the boring orientation of 2 days where they tortured us with their long presentations. The only good thing in the orientation was the lunch, it was free and tasty!! However it was not all uneventful, they did announced that three people from Mumbai will be sent to their textile mills at Ahemdabad. The people who said that textiles was their interest in their internship interview were like cursing themselves and hoping that their name do not shoot up. Mumbai, however worse it may look it has to be better than Ahemdabad, especially during summers. The bad fate fall upon three girls (including the “text girl”, Zarru told me that she had amazing typing speed on mobile and she could actually type without looking at the keypad!), they were told to pack their bags for a morning train to Ahemdabad and we bid them adieu which was kind of sadistic. There were other moments of interest too, our captain was like clean bold by one of damsels and did tried to engage her into a conversation by a weird and short question of “Which IIM” ? We do not know if she replied to that question (probably was put off), but we definitely know that the captain couldn’t gather the guts or was too shy to engage her in a longer conversation. And yeah how can I forget the orientation party organised at night which kind of sucked, the only good thing in it was free beer.  Even after years of HR experience, they couldn’t fathom that there cannot be a cool party without good music and dance. However we drank religiously and I ate a lot of fish which was certainly the best among the starters (however the next day I realised that the fishes do not like beer, had a terrible stomach ache). The party or rather the gathering ended at around 11:30, followed by some bulla-kating (time pass chat) in the bus (return journey to guest house) after which the orientation pretty much came to an end.

I was posted at their Makers Chambers IV office at Nariman point, which is said to be one of the most happening places at Mumbai. The first sight at CST station was an exact replica of the movie “Equilibrium”, there were like thousands of people moving like robots towards the office. Catching a cab to Makers was like a major fight, it was really a race, the one of catches the door first will have the luxury to acquire the seat. The office was ok.. it was pretty much the hard boss, soft boss game going on over there. Mr. Ambani worked under me!! (his office was just below our floor). I was given a closed cabin which was fantastic in all respects except for the fact that I was trapped in that cabin for two months with Zarru. Zarru was a decent guy but the fact that he is a guy was a problem & I am sure he shared the feelings for me.  The famous or infamous Marine Drive was like 200 meters away from the office, it soon became a place where we went every day after lunch for “couple watching”. In due time we were able to separate the regular couple from the few timers, it was an interesting exercise. The jetty region of Marine Drive was especially awesome, it always welcomed us with a cool breeze and Mumbai looked really beautiful every time. We also estimated the level of water, whether it is risen or fallen, it was another useless activity but we really had a lot of time to pass.

It was only after a few days we were able to discover the heaven at Nariman Point; it is known by the name “Gokul” situated very close to “Gateway of India”. It was like the best place ever, basically a student bar which nourished us with cheap booze and finger licking starters at decent rates. The mutton seenkh kabab was arguably the best dish there. The place was also blessed with hot girls creating an apt atmosphere for an evening drink. It was at this legendary place we created a whole new language  with each word starting with “chitu”, however its best I don’t speak much on this topic else “Darpan bhaiya” may get really angry.

At guest house our life after office was also pretty peaceful and royal. I and Zarru generally grabbed a beer on the way and we as a group spent the evening watching IPL matches. Sometimes we also played baddy and on rare occasions dived into the swimming pool. Katti became really famous at RCP office and we called his group by the name “Katti’s angels”. Angels were Ms. Chicken, Ms. Octopus and Sarda (his college friend at BHU). Shiva had become a full time salesman at Reliance; all he did was visiting stores all over Mumbai. Our captain was in love with gully cricket played by local teams in the Municipal ground next to the guest house. The only thought on his mind was to wake up early and reach the ground. His swing bowling might not work elsewhere but it did work on the cricket ground ;).

One fine evening I made a really weird plan. I decided to pack a roasted chicken from “Baghdadi”, took a print out of Jagjit Singh’s song “Hoshwaalon ko khabar kya” and grabbed two cans of Carlsberg strong. I actually planed to get drunk and sing this song at high decibel levels. Yes this was definitely the weirdest plan ever. But before I could put my plan to action Katti invited me to the “Bluefrog” party. I then also asked Prakash to come along and we all rushed to the Bluefrog as the aim was to reach before 9:00 pm to escape the “entry fee” and avail the “happy hour” offer. I had never gone to a premium bar before. The ambience there was superb and lot of eye candies. The Reliance damsels were dressed in proper party clothes and for a change every one of them looked beautiful. It was really after Bluefrog I became friend with Ms. Chicken (she was like a cute kid), Ms. Octopus (she was smart, funny and could predict future – tarot card reading) and Ms. Ice (she was the coolest and most mature among them, but the name ice is not because she was cool, it has a different history behind it). The food there was horrible except for the chicken dish. But the booze was as usual awesome. I drank like 4 pints of Tuborg, two were on the frog. The party was really rocked by the live performance of an upcoming band. He sang some real classics and we all danced to its beats. We were then joined by other Reliance interns and party became way more fun. We all danced for few hours till the live performance was going on and decided to leave when the band was replaced by a DJ. Also Ms. Ice got herself a “coffee date” towards the end of the party. The first night at Bluefrog ended on a pleasant note, we all loved it.

Among other things I did, was visiting “Gokul” again with college friends, where one of them was cursing Mumbai, describing how pathetic it is and after the internship he can proudly say that he has risen from the basest level! (the guy was stuck in a pathetic accommodation at Dharavi – slum area in Mumbai). Thanks to Reliance we got free tickets to IPL for Mumbai vs Deccan match. It was my first visit to a cricket stadium and so I was oozing with enthusiasm. We bought Mumbai Indian t-shirts at double price (consumer surplus is extracted in real life J) to get in the flow of cricket spirit. The seats that were booked for us were just perfect to watch the game and the cheer leader squad was also close to our stand. We were later joined by other Reliance employees from our office, which was good because we needed the camera. We had left our phones at the office thinking there will be security issues. The stadium was echoing with the sounds of “Go Go Gooo..Deccan chargers” and “Mumbai Indians dikha do”. People were really vibrant and sometimes there was Mexican wave going around the stadium. We also borrowed Malinga’s caps for the purpose of photograph. It was high time and needless to say that watching Sachin and Malinga was like a dream come true!

The internship period did melt away quickly and we didn’t even realised that soon it will be a time to say adieu. The second bluefrog party was like the final showdown. I and Zarru went there directly from office (yep our big boss dragged us to the last day, though we had finished our reports and presentations a week earlier). It was the first time that almost everyone was there at the same time and that made the “second bluefrog” really special. I wanted to drink like there was no tomorrow (waise jw red label was awesome to help my desire, had it for the first time). Everyone danced that day, though the music kind of sucked but nothing was going to deter us. Mridula brought life to the party by dragging everyone of us to the dance floor even the “shy guy” Vikas. Aditi with her karate moves, Vidhya and Bara with their carefree dance and me, Zarru and Katti prancing like monkeys but who cares we enjoyed like hell that night. For me the second blue frog was more memorable than the first one. Towards the end of the party, the bitter Good Byes had already started. The major part of the group was leaving that night..

However it was not the last day for everyone, me, Vidhya and Bara had one more awesome day in store for us. The last tango was at Aditi’s home at band-stand. We took a cab to her place and though she was there to receive us we couldn’t recognize her in black kurta and she was shouting “Freaks wait I am here” :P. We went to her room where the atmosphere was perfect. The amazing sea view from the window blended with the soothing music was flawless. It was also nice to see the big girl really taking good care of us. Of course Bara ate most of the mangoes that were served, she is unstoppableJ. The paintings were cool too, Aditi’s mom is an artist. Vidhya wanted Aditi to rent a small place by window to her (actually every one of us wished for that). It was raining outside; the weather was perfect to enjoy a real band-stand view. From Aditi’s home we went to a church, lit some candles. It was followed by a walk to band stand. With two umbrella’s shared between three people, we were semi drenched, but I was kind of enjoying it. The band stand view and the waves touching our feet did provide a consummate experience. We clicked some photographs and also shot a short video of the place (the video captures me calling Aditi darpok and she calling me a freak :P, she was like super caring that day). We went to “Candies” for lunch, the ordering system was very random but the food was good. A nudge from a fat girl dropped my mutton hot dog (I still regret that, I and Bara so much wanted to eat that). Aditi tripped towards the end, but thank god she was alright. I think the place was cursed, first my hot dog and then Aditi tripping, there was definitely something wrong with the place. Vidhya had to leave to her relative’s home after we returned from Candies, so it was time we bid final good bye to her. The group was shrinking! I had a TT match with Aditi where she beat me 2-1, Bara getting bored of our game was clicking random photographs. She clicked a butterfly and worst of all a mosquito too. Yeah we then also did some NSP on facebook. In the evening we went to the famous “Joggers Park” and were lucky to see “Dilip Kumar”. We also had a sentimental and serious friends talk among each other, it was really one of the nice moments of the day. We then had our dinner at an Italian restaurant where we ate some stuff I don’t remember and Bara undoubtedly ordered a mango drink. She was hoping to pack a KFC chicken on the way but unfortunately KFC was closed by the time we reached there (however later she had her KFC chicken at airport, as I said she is unstoppable :) ). It was at KFC where I and Bara bid adieu to Aditi. It was a wonderful day and to be truthful I was sad that the day has to end. Even Ms. Ice was nostalgic; it was Bara who noticed her watery eyes. Ms. Ice was emotional too, all the good ones always are! But as someone rightly said nothing lasts forever, we had to part away, but no one can take our sweet memories which will be cherished forever. We took a cab back to the guest house. Bara returned back by a morning flight and I took an afternoon flight back to Bangalore. Mumbai internship was over!

In reminiscence I can’t really point out what made the city so special. Was it the city, the people or may be just a coincidence but before I left I was in love with Mumbai!