Roof top football, Champions League disappointment, Evading Dadar, Crazy bike ride from Vikhroli to JUHU, and Iskcon temple darshan made this week another week to remember at Bombay.
I had never thought that playing football at roof top would be of much fun. Sunday evening, my friend Harish came up with the idea of playing football at roof top. I thought of giving it a go. Harish, Sudarsan, Karthikeyan and me went to play with two a side. The rough floor made sure that our legs are bruised persistently. But we didn’t care about it. Throughout the match we were comparing the match with that of our favorite premier league clubs and sometimes chanting the club songs for fun. Though it was too childish, we loved it a lot. The two hours of play was when I had more fun than the outings till date here.
The very first weekday turned out to be a good day for travel. I traveled in local during the peak hours in the evening without even a single drop of sweat or even a slightest push or pull. It is no achievement elsewhere, but in Bombay it is. I had noticed before that there is a train to Bandra and a train to Andheri which follows it around 6:00 PM in Dadar. And in Dadar people fight to board a local even if it is entirely free. There will be a heavy fight for Andheri train and relatively lesser fight for Bandra train. So, I boarded the Bandra train which doesn’t have a lot of crowd and a lot of people boarding onto. Then I got down in Mahim Junction. In another 2 minutes, the train to Andheri came, and surprisingly there wasn’t a single person fighting to board. I boarded it and reached Ville Parle without even a single push or pull. I felt like having conquered Bombay local.
On the same day, I went to Pop Tates in Sakinaka for dinner with Manu, Krishna and Pranav. Sakinaka was portrayed as the ‘Hell on Earth’ in terms of traffic by my friend Rahul. But it didn’t seem so. May be it is because I went there after the peak hours. On the way from Vile Parle, there are many star hotels lined up on both the sides of the road. Other than the dinner, it was the heated conversation we had about our college, internship and the path our college is heading to that was very interesting. The gist of it is that ‘Students are capable of being innovative and creative, but the restrictions and the blocks that everyone receives at each corner of a change are enormous. If those were relaxed, sky is the limit for Students’ capabilities.’
I tried another way to avoid the frustrating and depressing Dadar-station-boarding-fights. When I returned back from Vikhrohli, I got down at Matunga station and walked to the Matunga road station through that scary pathway surrounded on both sides with the rail coach workshops. I reached the other side in 10 minutes and I boarded the train in the next 2-3 minutes for which there was not even a single person fighting. The next day I found out that it took 15 minutes to reach to Matunga road station from Matunga via the Dadar route. And apart from the 15 minutes, I had to see the fights to board the train and had to realize that most of the human beings aren’t sensible. I would spare more time to avoid boarding at the Dadar station in the evening. Evading Dadar station as much as possible is my aim while traveling in local.
Driving bike at Madras is always fun for me. I will grab an opportunity to drive at Madras whenever I get and I have rode more than 21k km in my Unicorn. But how will it be in Bombay? I thought of giving it a try and asked Rahul for riding his bike from Vikhrohli to Juhu. His bike is a Bajaj XCD model. The gear system is entirely opposite to that of my Unicorn. I always had to change the gear thrice as I always shifted the gear in the opposite direction and then had to reverse it and shift again. It was really tough to handle the bike and think about riding on the Bombay roads with the traffic. All the roads are not made of tar. There are roads made of small concrete blocks, which turn into bumpy roads very soon. The roads are definitely better in Madras. Ultimately I drove like a mad man cutting through traffic. I could have caused several accidents. It was one crazy drive, I would never forget.
For god saved me without any accident during my crazy bike ride, I paid him a visit. 😉 I went to the ISKCON (International Society for Krishna Consciousness) temple in JUHU. It was a temple which was among 400 other temples under the society. With the first look, I thought it was not a temple but a mini palace. The society had a park and an apartment inside the compound along with the Temple. I also came to know that the membership of the society is very costly. The society was formed to spread Vaishnavism (Devoted following of Lord Vishnuu) way back in 1960s. The prayers are a little different from that in Tamilnadu. There were a lot of devotees who are singing the Hare Krishna songs and dancing with their devotional steps. There were several foreigners who were watching that with a lot of respect. I as an Indian wasn’t paying much attention initially. The way they pay respect to other culture is a learning to everyone. Mutual respect to all cultures raises your self esteem. On both the sides of the temple, there were models of the different avatars of Lord Vishnuu which are very educational. The temple also had many food stalls where they served tea, snacks, chats, sweets and even dosas. I have never before seen a temple having so many food stalls apart from the Prasadam. One advice for the temple visitors in future – don’t ever try the herbal tea there. Overall, the temple is one place to visit in Mumbai with the Siddi Vinayagar temple in Dadar and the Mahalakshmi temples waiting in line to be visited.
ahh, Bombay has its charm and there is a love hate relationship u have wid the city. It pulls u in 🙂
ISKCON’s restaurant is quite popular.
http://styledestino.blogspot.com
Had Madras not existed, it would have happened without doubt. 🙂
Thanks for the comment