The Day Mumbai Came to a Standstill……

On normal days it’s a crazy street

With hawkers running across the street

Carrying their wares in bundled wrap

Waiting till police van disappear

Back they are on the spot

Shouting and peddling, to sell their lot

There is heavy traffic with blaring horns

Snaking through path in between the crowd

There is noise, there is dust, plastic bags

In midst of feet, carefully we walk.

This is life on Mumbai streets

That moves at its' fastest pace

But now it seems like a ghost city, Men on bike forcing the shop keepers to drop down their shutters, I met a woman on the road who complained that cinema house stopped the movie mid- way and people were asked to go home, I went to market and vegetable sellers were quickly selling all the vegetables at Rs30, there were no hawkers,...no autos on roads, buses were overcrowded, everybody walking at fast pace, Saturday night, in the city that never sleeps, 6pm looked like 2am...Mumbai was mourning for Bal Thackeray out of fear

Bal Thackeray, the man who could bring Mumbai and the entire State of Maharashtra to a standstill by a single command and whose ethnic and communal rhetoric added a strain of perpetual menace to an already fraught metropolis, died on Saturday, November 17. He was86.

On the day of the funeral, more than 2 million people walked silently towards Shivaji Park, while the rest of the city came to a stand-still.

My maid did not turn up for work, but the masseurs dared to walk down the lonely street to earn their hourly wages. People who work from home were not affected but only distracted. There are some families in Mumbai who depend on their daily wages to feed their family and bandh like these affect them a lot, because bills have to be paid irrespective of they making a sale or not.

With no TV, no cinema or any other entertainment, most of the people were on social media venting their emotions, some good, some bad and some very evil.

For me, Sunday was the quality time with my family, we had the whole family under one roof eating HOME COOKED food all Sunday, Bombay bandh was a blessing in disguise...... tomorrow is another day.