My love for Mumbai is profound. I have known that city since childhood. Not because I lived there, but because I have seen it on TV from the time I could make meaning out of things. TV has portrayed Mumbai as a fast-paced, always-awake city with cars moving in blurred lines in full speed along the marine drive or people always standing and/or pushing each other to onboard and de-board the overly jam-packed local trains at CST railway station. From its beaches to its roads, I have seen Mumbai in all weathers on TV. So, I have known the city for 30 years now and always dreamt of having a house to live there. I must mention the major interior décor inspiration from the movie Wake up! Sid.
Thus, on a rainy evening when the air was pleasant with dewy petrichor and I was free from my recent addiction, my new one plus (6), I decided it was the best moment to discuss my dream plan with my ‘plus one‘, the man of the house. I made some good tea and sat with him to discuss the brilliant idea of moving to my dream city. Unknown to my knowledge, the man of the house had a different opinion of the city I so admired. If I was in the north, he was in the extreme south.
No sooner did I open my box full of ideas, he opened the newspaper. The newspaper has always been the bearer of bad news in my household that has led to uncountable fights between us. Whenever I planned a movie with the man of the house, the newspaper showed poor ratings, thus leading to the abrupt cancellation of the movie date. When I wanted to buy a scooter, all the pages of the darn newspaper read about the fuel price hike. On top of it all, when I planned to get married, the newspaper brought in news of demonetization. Similarly, this time also, I wanted to shift to Mumbai and the newspaper read about the rising number of deaths in the city owing to monsoon and potholes.
Monsoon and Mumbai are like brothers. Or maybe synonyms. Every year, when the monsoon arrives, people start praying to the water Gods not to flood Mumbai that causes the face-paced city to standstill and incurs a heavy loss of life. My plus one leaves no page unturned to narrate me the dire consequences of monsoons in Mumbai and how the killer potholes are claiming lives one after another. They could even successfully pile up a five-km-long traffic jam on Sion-Panvel Highway! While the authorities claim the number of potholes has reduced from 14,455 in 2014-15 to 4,478 in 2016-17, the death count has doubled at 726 year-on-year, putting Maharashtra in the second position after Uttar Pradesh for pothole deaths. Well, looks like in India, potholes are the new weapons of mass destruction after terrorism as a report says that around 3600 died due to potholes while the latter claimed 803 lives in 2017.
In an attempt to close the discussion, he muttered behind the newspaper “Only a mad person like you will want to live in a city where Yamaraja lives on roads!”. It clearly indicated a big thamba to my plans. I could see my dreams of shifting to Mumbai drowning in its potholes.
Done with so much news updates causing ‘Aata Majhi Satakli’, I got up and retorted, “If Yamraja can descend from hell to live in Mumbai, why can’t we?”
We now live in Gurgaon where it is easier to get shot in broad-daylight any time of the year than drowning in an invisible pothole only during monsoon. Amidst this Mumbai-Gurgaon khit-khit, Yamaraja, from his new abode, must be smirking and whispering,”Ikade va tikade, tujha vaat laagli, samajhle kay?”
