Sunday, September 14, 2008

Imagine this!

Imagine a system so advanced you don't even need to make a effort to climb it and once your in it the highly advanced technology enables you to stand without taking support from anything,
in fact the evolutionary systems within it are at such an advanced stage that , when your stop comes you just need to make sure your at the right spot so that it takes care that you get down in time. Also the high fidelity, crystal clear public address system makes sure that you never miss out on the station that is coming by(its as if some beside you is shouting in your ear the name of the next station). And believe me, when i say that it offers you such comforts that you can play cards, you can have a nice time with your girlfriend, listen to songs on any volume level that you want to. Now if you are jumping to conclusions that all this technology must be owned only by the super rich and super famous believe me you have dipped your self in some dal tadka. In fact the technology is so affordable that it is used by the poorest sections of the society, and of course hot chicks and cool dudes do get attracted to take a ride in it daily!!.

No wonder bal thackrey wants all non Maharashtrians to leave Mumbai!!

:D :D

Jokes apart there is not a single over exaggerated statement in the above paragraph.
I am 100% correct when I say that u don't need an effort to climb the train (just stand at the entrance at the office rush hour times and the crazy crowds just push you you into the train).
I am not wrong when I say you don't need to catch anything so that you don't fall ( the trains are so tightly packed that you hardly twitch a muscle so let lone the space for you to fall).
I am absolutely right again when i say that it has a hi fi public address system ( there is always a guy beside you shouting the coming stations name and asking you to get down or move aside).
Oh yeah if you were thinking I must have absolutely exaggerated the playing cards thing!! you have again dipped yourself in dal tadka, me and my friends have found a batch of office goers who happen to get into the train at the first stop and travel till last stop i guess so they get a whole block of seats for themselves and play cards in the morning rush hour!!and about
the romancing in train hmm love does not discriminate, love does not see, love does not smell, so you can always do it in the local train. :D

Now putting the jokes really, really away in my trunk and locking it up.

Believe me when i say there is no Mumbai without the local trains, day in and day out the arrive at almost the scheduled time to take you to your temples of cash and get you back to your home sweet home. They have a history, they have a heritage that one can be proud of as an Indian. yes they are shabby yes they don't look beautiful but they do their jobs without failing you. Even though one loathes them daily for having to travel in such conditions(ultra tech conditions :P) one cannot do without them.

that is the beauty of the local trains in Mumbai that is the status they enjoy in Mumbai. and hey good news for mumbaikers the railways are getting new coaches and they sure look good...

p.s let me leave you with some amazing facts

  • The system carries more than 6.1 million commuters on a daily basis and constitutes more than half of the total daily passenger capacity of the INDIAN RAILWAYS itself.
  • This was also the oldest railway system in Asia. The first train ran between Mumbai and Thane, a distance of 34 km
  • go to wiki to take a look at the new locals they are quite good.


p.p.s: next post is on the hot and not so hot chicks of Mumbai :) :D :P!!

Saturday, July 19, 2008

Vaada paav khate ho kya???

3 rd JULY 0530hrs C.S.T Mumbai Railway station:
"utto saaab station aagaye!!!"

Thus started my journey into a completely new and exciting life, ah the first impressions of Mumbai were quite plain and dull nothing interesting except for just one thing......
I was waiting in the station looking over the luggage while my good friends went to the enquiry to find out the means to reach our destination. And I saw a mada(homo/o.5) very well dressed in a blue saree( aqua blue) and with two assistants(male) she(/he) conversed with the cargo in charge for a few mins and went ahead to alight the train!........
Never mind, I would be seeing many more such things probably, I thought to my self, and returned to watching over the luggage........
we went ahead to the Local train part of the Chatrapathy Shivaji Station Terminus...
It would be an insult to my Civil Engineering degree if I were to forget mentioning the amazing architecture and building of the CST . It is a truly amazing Gothic structure with very high standing roofs and out-standing metal work pillars, it evokes a feeling of grandeur and power.....
coming back to the First impressions of Mumbai.
As we proceeded towards the trains it was a disgusting sight to see the filthy, shabby and yakky( i couldn't find a better word pardon me for using such slang and pardon me for any future slang too) trains I was not happy to make my travel in those trains and in between all of these I also saw a queen train omg this was a Delhi metro type train but it was with open doors i was hoping for more such trains as I was alighting my disappointing local train to vashi....
In the train...
I happen to meet a telugu speaking guy ( who works as a distributor for a telugu paper "sakshi"), i was not inclined to talk to him , but my good friend vinay had a long conversation of 20 mins(it takes abt 30 mins from cst to vashi) and i heard good bits of him scolding the CM of AP and MAHARASHTRA ,how they ate loads of public money and scolding his brother who happen to cheat him in a business and brought him to his current state and appraising vinay of all the local stuff to be careful about, most of which were like "BEWARE OF PICKPOCKETERS"..........
And we got down at the Vashi it was a huge complex i was wondering what the structure above was for.....(more on that later)
ah we reached the ps station in a very shabby manner at abt 7 o clock in the morning and were taken to the
The impression of the room was too disgusting to describe and on seeing this the incharge who was with us had promised to shift us to better location in 2 or three days which he did!!
anyways we got settled and got ready to go the ps station to talk to the boss!!
and to our surprise we were given work on 3rd itself!!! a day before our ps starts, the employees most of them ex bitsians were surprised why we were working a day before............

the work given to us was the worlds most boring job
it was to copy comments made on auto cad onto to the blue prints !!! about 5*5 sets
I believed it must be a Mr. miagi kind of thing and went ahead, to my dismay it was but only a peons job!! lol lol
my job improved a bit, after a few days though, with me working on a formula to calculate tower deflections and analyzing a coal bunker structure!!
Moving on, my boss my coordinator from DCl side(Devlopment Consulltants Limited where i am the intern now)Mr. kanjkar or dear Mowgli as he will be further refrenced from now on is quite a character he had scolded every body in the office in a span of 2 days except for the ps students( I wonder why!!)
about the company its a fairly good one working on high level infrastructure projects both in India and overseas acting as the governments Engineer and in the past it seems has worked on classified defense projects and has been involved in building all of India's Nuclear reactors and the mobile launching platform of Sriharikota launch facility .......
coming back to Mumbai.....
Imagine any normal Indian city( me refrencing HYD) add beautiful girls who are fiercely Independent and dudes with misfitting goggles and every office goer walking at break neck speeds or running!( funny thing is that i had observed it is too easy to spot a non mumbaiker in a crowd at vashi railway station he is the slowest person and has an uncomfortable expression on his face...Two days of Mumbai life and I have become a mumbaiker well at least in terms of walking fast lolol)... .....
all in all the first day went on OK may be slightly on the bad side but hey nothings ever like u expect
and ya there are more, many more incidents to talk about keep visiting back every Sunday to have a look at mumbai through my eyes
p.s: the next week ur gonna know abt the mumbai train network and all the socail ramifications of it! most of which are comically brilliant.....
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p.p.s: The tiltle has got nothing to do and everything to do with this post.... i eat vada pav as break fast daily( for the past week here),it is as much integrated into mumbai life as much as biryani in my life!!!:D......