The Mumbai I love..

A very special wedding took me to Mumbai a couple of months back. After the onslaught of Delhi's dreadfully cold winter, the muggy warmth of Mumbai's November felt like a soothing balm for my miserable throat and my aching soul. And the rush i felt just being surrounded by the buzzing, throbbing, vivacious pulse of the city that stirs me like no other...it was a moment i still linger over.
Playing proxy sister to my best friend as she totteringly/drunkenly/bravely/magnificently orchestrated a culturally-explosive wedding (her own!)..being a very thrilled side-kick entrusted with flower trays and gift responsibilities, 'stealing and then haggling over the price of the groom's n shoes' (as is customary in Indian weddings) and desperately struggling to avoid tripping over my saree hem -all this was perhaps just what i needed to break away. And if that was not enough-i had a day to spare to go soak up the city that made me who i am today.
Of course-being away for too long means starting over in some valuable lessons that Mumbai teaches you almost instantly. Like prepping to get off at your station well in time when traveling in the local trains. A lesson my husband had conveniently forgotten which left me looking around for him all over Bandra station's platform after safely getting off the Ladies compartment. Of course-he called me ten minutes later to sheepishly admit he'd reached Andheri (a few miles down)instead!
But these hilarious hiccups apart, steering through the city is like a walk in the rain for me-romantic, exhilarating, liberating as always. Maybe i wont feel the same way if i woke up every day to battle the engulfing traffic and the daily struggles..but till that time, Mumbai is always going to give me a head-rush.
So whether its shopping for soapstone carvings at Dhoop in Khar or having nimboo pani at my alma mater's Bistro, flipping through magazines at Just Around the Corner while waiting for a perfect sandwich or simply cruising across Marine Drive in the quintessentially battered cab..the simplest things here make me feel that i am home, i am happy and i am in love..forever.

P.S: Did i mention that Mumbai has a Hard Rock Cafe now. Another reason for me (a self-confessed HRC fan) to love it some more! And did i mention that Seattle (the birth place of grunge music) DOES NOT have one. Irony, irony..