Accompany Me On My Journeys

Dear Mr. Modi,

People worship you, praise you to the heavens and truly believe you are the only one that can uplift India from a developing nation status, closer to being a developed country. And when I say people I don’t just mean the Gujaratis but the people of India in general. My plea to you as a Mumbaikar is please don’t ignore our city like every other PM has. Mumbai provides the highest per capital income at Rs 1.67 lakh but still has the maximum number of homeless people in India.

Mumbai is bleeding, it is bursting at its seams and is a ticking time-bomb that only you can stop from an otherwise inevitable detonation. Our wonderful city that contributes to 33 percent of India’s tax, 60 percent of India’s customs duty and 20 percent of India’s foreign trade is in a state of wreckage. In spite of doing so much for the nation for years on end, Mumbai only got its metro 30 years after Kolkata got hers.

There are more than a hundred reasons as to why Mumbai needs a drastic overhaul. For instance, the vehicular traffic according to the 2009 Mumbai Development report was to touch 1.87 million by 2010. We do not have roads wide enough or strong enough to handle that. In the financial capital of the country 55 percent of its population lives in slums. And we still have more and more people pouring in everyday from every corner of India. Mumbai is still currently running on the Storm Water drainage system put in place by the British more than 100 years ago. Now that is just ridiculous! Don't you think? Travel by the local trains during one heavy shower Mr. PM, you will then know what a living a nightmare looks like. Noise levels all over Mumbai exceed prescribed standards of the Central Pollution Control Board. And if you want to talk about air pollution levels, things are so critical that breathing the city’s air for a day is equivalent to smoking a packet of cigarettes.   

At Rs 1.03 lakh, Maharashtra has the second highest per capita income as compared to other major states in the country, according to the latest Economic Survey. However, on the Human Development Index (HDI), it ranks way below states like Kerala and Punjab that have a much lower per capita income. Why so Mr. Modi? 

Mumbai is still however made out to be a city of dreams, but where is the quality of life? The Mumbaikar has to survive in spite of a serious lack of infrastructure, horrible and dangerous roads, overcrowded public transport, water problems, obscene rent rates, pollution and filth to name a few issues. In spite of these problems more than 1000 people migrate to Mumbai everyday in the hope of finding work to provide for their entire families back home, wherever that may be. Mumbai cannot handle its current population; imagine what will happen with the increasing migrating traffic!

There are about 75 lakh people who travel by the suburban railway system everyday; and around 360 thousand people per hour during the peak period, while the capacity of the services is close to about 160 thousand per hour only, that’s close to three times the capacity. Imagine the stress levels this city has to deal with every single day! And still we’re expected to make do, survive, and travel to and fro from work preparing for a battle with our lunch dabbas and laptops before boarding a Churchgate/CST local. Yes, traveling by local train is the same, if not worse, than a battlefield.

To make things worse, our city is also sinking! Yes, Mumbai is sinking and according to Marine Biologist, Vishnu Kanhere, there has been a 30 cm rise in sea level over the past three years. And no, we cannot blame Global Warming for such a rapid rise. Kanhere also says, “In Mumbai, the seashores have been reclaimed. Mumbai itself is a reclaimed area comprising seven islands. If the high tide level continues to rise at this rate it is time to seriously think of how to save Mumbai. Even the seashore has eroded and there are few beaches remaining.”

Mr. Modi, we have survived bomb blasts, flooding every monsoon, the everyday Virar local and many other things in this beautifully abused city. But it is not ok anymore, we cannot adjust, we cannot make do, we NEED a change. And we need it ASAP. Millions of Mumbaikars, me included, are eagerly waiting, not for a reply, but for some ACTION on these critical problems.

Resources:

• 2009 Mumbai Development report
• http://www.dnaindia.com/mumbai/report-city-s-sinking-feel-experts-1172357
•  http://indianexpress.com/article/cities/mumbai/per-capita-income-state-second-only-to-haryana/#sthash.jHXy48aQ.dpuf
• http://www.moneylife.in/article/creating-stressful-life-for-all-in-mumbai/27126.html

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ps: I know this is not a regular blog post but since you agreed to accompany me on my journeys, this is one of them.

It has been eons since I wrote, also it always feels like eons since I have travelled. There has been a feeling of numbness when it came to writing. It happens every now and then and to best of writers. There are those days when life feels drab and grey. But on those dark, cloudy days there is nothing like indulging in a cup of steaming hot chocolate and curling up with a favourite book.

So what have I been upto?
I have been planning the trips to come, day-dreaming, obsessively reading travelogues for inspiration, over-enthusiastically mailing my husband link after link and sighing way too much.

But the first quarter of 2014 wasn't all that bad. I took a 5 day break and took off for Hampi with a few of my girlfriends. It was a very peaceful trip. I do want to go back again with Shayne and explore more sites and also stay at Shanthi. Shanthi is a beautiful resort, tucked away in Anegundi which is on the other side of the river facing stark green rice paddy fields. We went there for lunch one day and the place was just so tranquil that my friend dozed off waiting for our meal. The food is not so bad compared to other places. Food by the way is a trial and error kind of thing in Hampi. Definitely try Mango Tree restaurant.



Although we flew both ways from Mumbai to Hubbali, we spent way too much time travelling as there are no direct trains or flights to Hospet from Mumbai - which is the closest spot to Hampi, just a riksha ride away. However there are daily buses running from Mumbai to Hospet if you are not weary of long bus rides. Avoid taking the local buses unless you are feeling adventurous from Hubbali to Hospet. The buses take much longer and might not be direct buses which means a few changes. And with two other pretty girls by my side I had to fight off a lot of drunk lungi clad uncles poking their behind in our faces. Some of them were practically sitting on me and I had to elbow him as he didn't seem to understand any Hindi. The train journey from Hospet to Hubbali was so much more comfortable on the way back.

So you take a train/flight and get to Hampi, the melancholicly beautiful land of ruins, a UNESCO world heritage site. The former capital of the Vijaynagara Empire, is now captured by monkeys and you better be beware of them. While we all sat waiting for our riksha/bicylcle South Hampi tour and were admiring the beauty of the Virupaksha temple from a shady spot, guess what crime we became witnesses to? What we saw left us stupefied! A tiny langur sees a bunch of unattended bags lying. He sneakily opens the zip of the bag and removes a mobile phone and runs away! I wonder if that was for his girlfriend.

@Kingdom of Dreams, Gurgaon

@Kingdom of Dreams, Gurgaon

@Kingdom of Dreams, Gurgaon

The quaint scene from our room @The Hidden Village, Atgaon

@my husband at peace taking in the lake side view near the Hidden Village

There is a certain joy in traveling that one can't experience at a shopping mall or at a movie theater. It's a different kind of ecstasy. Almost incomprehensible sometimes. But it also works as some form of intoxication as you lose all your inhibitions and surrender to pleasures of new sights, sounds and taste. You do things you never do in your own city, say you don a bikini to the beach, which you wouldn't dare to wear to the swimming pool at the club. You try food items from the street, you cycle or walk kilometers. So traveling does free you in some sense, it frees you from responsibilities, pressures of work and mundane daily activities.

I know I promised pictures of our Thailand trip in the last post and have been extremely lazy in posting them but life has been passing me by in a whirlwind of activity. More precisely life post marriage has picked up pace, although I do have my lazy moments. But I've learnt how one has to don the cape post marriage and look up to the road runner to get everything done. Luckily for me I have a steal of a husband who helps me around the house more than I had bargained for.

As I am done justifying, below are some pictures from our most recent trip to the Andamans.

Clownfish Cafe was a very pretty little joint to spend the hot afternoon in. They serve pizzas, pastas and sandwiches. We had the seafood pasta, the mango flavoured chicken dish and mango milkshake. The food was not bad but the ambience was simply beautiful. And the PADI office is right here too.

Corbyn's Cove beach at Port Blair.

At Radhasagar beach

Stay tuned as pictures of our Thailand trip are yet to be uploaded. There are so many pending posts that I need to jot down, I hope I can be more regular in posting from now on. Feedback is very much appreciated and a great form of motivation, so please do let me know your thoughts and ideas and places you would like to hear about.

You can vote here: http://apps.facebook.com/freakytraveller/?voteprofile=236796117

I won't make long false promises if I get selected but I promise to keep this blog more alive and updated than it has been in the recent past. Click on that link, and vote, go, NOW!

Update: Did not make it to The Freaky Traveller but perhaps I am not meant to travel around alone and one is blessed to have such a good companion to experience each other's life with, right? :)

I was born on Ganpati Chaturthi twenty-five years ago. So you see, I have a special connection with the dear one. I am sort of partial to Ganpati, the Lord of prosperity and good fortune. Every year I thought, I should go see the Lalbaugh Ganpati this year but I never got around to doing it. People come from far off lands to just get a glimpse of this mighty statue at Lalbaugh, waiting for hours on end. My friend told me that people who wish for a mannat stand in a seperate special queue for atleast 15 hours.

Almost there: people trying to take pictures from their mobile phones as they are pushed ahead.

So this year when a family friend said she had special passes to see Lalbaughcha Raja, I jumped at the opportunity. The whole place to the surrounding road was under heavy supervision of military men dressed in blue, cops and traffic police trying to manage the thousands and thousands of people standing in the queues.We left at 10a.m., we stood in the VIP line for barely fifteen minutes and there we were, in front of the famous Lalbaughcha Ganpati. I had goosebumps when I finally saw the majestic statue, part of me also wanted to cry.

                                                                                                On a regular day, post a swim at Mafatlal Bath Club, my friend and me would have headed back to our respective homes. But this was the day of the Lunar Eclipse, which last happened 40 years ago! Who knows how long you're going to live and why wait for another 40 years right? So we decided to head out to Nehru Planetarium at half past eleven.                                                 

The next thing we are at the staircase opposite Nehru Planetarium, where telescopes were set up for the public. We had a very kind and patient gentleman, who gave us gyaan about what an umbra and penumbra shadows are, bringing back flashes of scientific diagrams from school. Wiki link for umbra and penumbra here. About the experience of it all? There was a telescope alright, but there were also a fairly decent number of excited people. We tried to weasel our way to where the scholars had setup their equipment and we did get partially lucky with the binoculars and viewfinder of a camera, attached to a telescope, capturing images. Unfortunately, I forgot my own camera, so all you get is a picture taken from my phone.

Taken on June 16th, 2011 at 12:06 (IST) Just a blob of light in an otherwise extremely cloudy sky, taken at earlier stages of the eclipse. My dad asked me not to go, "why don't you just watch it on TV beta?". And I'm so glad, that I didn't listen to him. Sorry Dad. But it was worth the trip. We were standing under the heavily clouded sky for two hours patiently (11:30- 1:30 a.m.), gaping as the eclipse moved in from the left over the moon, while the clouds moved in from the right. Everytime the sky would clear out even partially, there were shouts and random hands pointing, "See! Do you see that? There!".   There were sudden bursts of showers during which we were offered refuge under strangers umbrellas twice, which stopped in minutes. The anticipation of the cloud cover clearing and the atmosphere buzzing with people of all ages plus TV crews from various News Channels, while people sang rain songs, cracked jokes and shared umbrellas made it all worth it. There were quite a few children, and they just kept amusing me. I overheard one telling the bunch of kids encircling him in Gujarati, while peering through a telescope, "What no moon? What eclipse? If we are not going to be able to see it, why don't they tell us. What timepass!"