Bombay : The City Within
A friend recently forwarded a joke mail : "Things that prove you’re a Bombayite" (i.e. from Bombay) :
– You think Chowpatty & Juhu beaches as "nature."
– You say "town " and expect everyone to know that this means south of Kemps Corner.
– You speak in a dialect of Hindi called ‘Bambaiya Hindi’, which only Bombayites can understand.
– Your door has more than three locks.
– Rs 500 worth of groceries fit in one paper bag.
– Train timings (9.27, 10.49 etc) are really important events of life.
– You spend more time each month travelling than you spend at home.
– You call an 8’ x 10’ clustered room a Living Room.
– You’re paying Rs 10,000 for a 1 room flat, the size of walk-in closet and you think it’s a "steal."
– You have the following sets of friends: schoolfriends, college friends, neighborhood friends, office friends and yes, TRAIN friends, a species unique only in Bombay.
– You’re suspicious of strangers who are actually nice to you.
– Hookers, beggars and the homeless are invisible.
– You compare Bombay to New York’s Manhattan instead of any other cities of India.
– The most frequently used part of your car is the horn.
– You insist on calling Mumbai as Bombay, CST as VT, and Sahar and Santacruz airports instead of Chatrapati Shivaji International Airport.
– Your idea of personal space is when no one is actually standing on your toes.
– You love wading through knee deep mucky water in the monsoons, and actually call it ‘romantic’.
As someone who’s spent all his life in this magical city, I couldn’t agree with it more !!!
So true. But like a propah Bombay wallah, I want to nit-pick.”Town” is South of Haji Ali. South of Kemps Corner would mean that Peddar Road and Breach Candy are in the suburbs.If you have 3 locks on your door, it’s too damn unsafe. A minimum of 5 I say!
Very true!I spent most of my school years and early college years moving around the country. Now as I’ve stayed here in Bombay for the last 6 years, don’t feel like living anywhere else! It’s the only city/place I’ve become attached to. I’m sure there are millions of other people who feel the same
i lived and worked in bombay for a few years in the last decade.although i like a few aspects of living there i found the conditions punishing..traveling by first class on the local trains never provided any more tangible comfort than by second class except that the overpowering scent of human presence was the perfume in the former compared to the stench of sweat in the latter.of course a modicum of nicety was evident among the privileged travellers..