An year since...

Last year around July last week, I think on a Thursday afternoon as rains thrashed down the window pane in my Mumbai office, I realised that we are in for something special. The local mumbaites warned us that this is severe and "this station will be down", "this line would be stopped", "this road would have sinked"! Well I thought ok, so what, maybe I will be late by a few hours, once teh watre recedes, we can all get back home. but at about 4 PM, when the outside looked like it was 7 PM and I saw winds and rains move cars, I called up couple of my friends in other cities and got into exciting talk...

That night I stayed in office with some 100 odd colleagues of mine... We left office around 4 PM next day and two o my friends were with me and it was one hell of an adventure getting back to Thane from Lower Parel. People who know Mumbai will realise the distance and the pain. The sights we saw of abadoned cars, of brotherhood, of pain, of loss to property, of hopes, of a spirit which we call Mumbai, will live with me...That city rocks!!! The sight of housewives and grannies, standing on the road and serving water, tea and snacks to people who were walking for kilometres and not charging a penny, I think no city in India can boast of this. I love Mumbai for this.

We had a lot of fun. We are 5 of us, me, 2 of my roomies, a friend of mine and a colleague of mine. He stayed in Kalyan and therail lines were beyond repair and he was stranded at my place. TV channels conked off in the 2nd day and so began an adventure of non-stop movie watching. Today 2 of them are still working in Mumbai, another one is in Pune, one guy is having a ball in Birmingham and me sitting and typing here in KL.

I would not want to see anything like that again. But some stories will be exchanged over some whisky and vodka in the future. God Bless Mumbai.