The Party Begins
As we shout “Macha!!” from the taxi window as we roll up to Romit’s house, I realize the party has just begun. The traditional vacation part of our trip was starting. Mumbai, as I soon found out, was the New York of India. In my opinion, it should become the new capital of India as well (just as NY should for the US). There was so much going on in the city, and thankfully Romit was not going to let us leave with out seeing all of it.
To continue the comparison with NY, Mumbai has a very punctual and functional metro system. However, when it comes to the number of people on a train, NY aynt got nothing on Mumbai trains! As we literally had to tackle our way in to the train and shoulder people to get a place to stand, I wondered what this train would be like during rush hour! Thankfully the doors don’t close, so we got some space from the people hanging out of the doors. As we got off from the train, we also discovered another advantage of a doorless train, as two hoodlums tried to snatch Pranay’s phone out of his hands, while they were hanging out from the moving train. His phone flew in the air and landed on the train tracks. He got lucky and the phone survived, but it definitely made me hold on tighter to my wallet and phone from then on out.
We then went shopping in Mumbai’s outdoor markets where you can get every designer brand for half the price, reminding me a lot of our own Merkato, or NY’s china town. Incase you want the original brandname clothes though, they also have large malls that make you feel like you just left India and entered Macy’s on 35th Street. Once we got tired of looking for the long list of requested items we came with, the beach areas and the many park/recreation areas around Mumbai made it a lot more fun for just hanging out. We got to see the Hollywood, I mean Bollywood, neighborhoods of India and the most expensive house in the world, which believe it or not, are all found in Mumbai.
Though there were many similarities with New York, in the end of the day, the Halal guys can’t compare to the street food that you can get in Mumbai. We got a great does of Pani Poori and many other Mumbai native foods, right at the end of our walk down lovers lane - the Queen’s Necklace - which reminded me a lot of our one and only lakeshore drive.
Dec 25, 2012
It was Christmas morning, and I had braced myself for not going to the Christmas tree to check for gifts and the special lunch that we usually had with family. I had no clue that Romit and his family would come to the rescue. We ended up going to his cousin’s home where we celebrated one of the most festive and lively Christmas lunch/parties I have attended. The day was filled with lots of christmas carols, red hats, drinking and even a surprise visit from santa with gifts - for everyone!
