I, like million others, watched
the interview of Oprah Winfrey (at Jaipur Literature Festival) on TV and sat
enthralled by her frankness and her open minded views on India.
Amongst many things that
she spoke I was most amused when she spoke about the chaotic lifestyle of
Mumbai
"It's like being in a video game.” She said,
“I don't know which way to look, why do you have a red light signal? Is it there for your entertainment? what? Nobody ever stops at red light.”
These are the common problems
which even my NRI cousins, who visit me regularly want to know. They can never
understand how the people in Mumbai can actually drive in the city that follows
no norms.
My cousin who was here last
week, came with his 19-year-old daughter, who was visiting Mumbai after 11
years. He wanted his daughter to experience the city he had grown up in and
they were all day out, exploring the city. He said he didn’t want to
highlight the negative side of Mumbai and wanted to concentrate on more
positive aspect of Mumbai.
But they were equally
fascinated with traffic of Mumbai which has grown from bad to worse. His daughter said that driving in Mumbai
city was too chaotic and the traffic moved so close to each other that if you
stretched your hand out of window, you could easily touch the bonnet of the
next car.
This was observed at all
times of the day in spite of the message 'Keep Distance' displayed behind every auto-rickshaw.
Well! They had fun clicking
all sorts of pictures but this one takes the cake. Where in the world would you
see cows waiting outside a beauty parlor?
It happens only in India.
Cousin splurged on food
Pani Puri- always the favorite, to pamper the NRI clients, hawkers now wear gloves and use cold bottled water
Puri Bhaji: the pregnant puris are always a delight
And of course Paan, I warned him not to spit on the walls, we don't need any more modern art on our streets, he wouldn't spit, but then, you never know.....
He did lots of shopping, they love shopping on the road and bargaining till the hawkers bleed, and yeah, he also went shopping for pirated movies at corner shop, he was shocked to see
that there were 6 different variations of Board Games on Don 2
well! that's called BIG range of entertainment and that's what makes Mumbai so interesting to visit, isn't it?
well! that's called BIG range of entertainment and that's what makes Mumbai so interesting to visit, isn't it?
