Mumbai Meri Jaan ... !!

The movie is good but I am not reviewing it here. Instead, this is going to be another of those why-does-he-write-such-long-posts posts. Yes, I visited my favorite city after a long time and as expected, I freaked out completely. Though I was not going there to freak out but for my Visa interview, this amazing city made sure that I didn't lose out on any of the fun.

It all started on Thursday. I left office early at 4 pm and reached home. I shaved and had some food before I reached Pune station. It felt so great to be back at Pune station waiting for my favorite train to depart. Yes, Intercity express. Its my favorite just coz I have had memorable experiences traveling in it. The fact that it doesn't take time reaching Thane is also a bonus. To top it all, I had booked a window seat. The party begins.

It left at its scheduled time of 5:55 pm. When I reached my seat, I found a lady with her 2 kids. Her son maybe around 12 and daughter was around 7. The daughter was sitting on my seat. The lady asked me my seat number and realized that her daughter was sitting on my seat. She asked her daughter to get up. Being a child, I know how painful it can be to give up a window seat. I scratched my head (I am absolutely fond of a window seat), grimaced and decided I am not going be Mr. Good Guy. Yeah, it will take something to give up a window seat on my part :) So I promptly made myself comfortable at my seat but the look on th little girl made me hate myself. But thats that.

As expected, it didn't take time for the train to pass Lonavala, Bhor Ghat and Karjat. Its when we passed Karjat that the feel of Mumbai started to set in. Every now and then, a local train would pass by. It was time for some Mumbaigiri. I asked the little girl to sit on my seat. She couldnt believe it. Her Mom said "Thank You mhann kakanla". And she did. Yes, I am a Kaka now. God bless the child.

I went up to the door of the compartment and stood there for the remainder of the journey. The joy of standing in the doorway combined with a high speed train zipping across suburban station platforms and the wind hitting with you with gusto is an experience. Its a great feeling hanging out of the train especially when there is no need to :). It was only after the train passed the bridge after Diva, the mountain after the bridge and finally the long tunnel that I knew I was close to Thane. The tunnel passed and the next thing I knew was that I was outside Thane station.

It was time to meet my bumchums. Pranay, Anay and Mahesh. All of them stay in Thane and I was very excited. I had called Mahesh before I left for Thane that I will meet them outside their society at 9 pm. I was surprised to see Thane station from outside. The place was dug up at lots of places and it looked like a flyover was being erected. Also, I couldn't see a lot of rikks or buses outside the station which baffled me. I walked down the road and finally the atmosphere became more like the normal atmosphere outside any Mumbai station. The crowd, the vehicles ... all jostling for space. I hired a rick to Vrindavan society and reached the bus stop of Vrindavan at 8:55. Talk about timing.

I could see Pranay and Mahesh waiting for me. It was such a thrill. To be fair, they seemed as happy as me. Well, it was almost 2 years since we all met and we really wanted to make it count. Anay was not receiving our calls so we assumed it was one of his trademark last minute ditches. Pranay is getting married in December and I hadn't met his girl friend (Devyani) in flesh so far. So the 3 of us went back to Thane station and waited for Devyani to come. She came at around 9:30 pm and we decided its time to booze. We discussed a few places but finally walked down to a place called UK.

Mahesh had turned teetotaler. So it was whisky for me and Pranay and a vodka with Red Bull for Devyani. It was the most amazing time we had. Pulling each other's legs and basically having a blast. For the time being, I forgot that I had to get up at 4:30 am the next morning coz I had come to Mumbai for a far bigger task :)

I don't know what first impression Devyani made out of me but it must be similar to what many others have. Being a girl, she needed to get back home earlier than the rest of us. She left at 10:30. Pranay, Mahesh and I lapped up everything by midnight. We spoke about a bit f everything. The more people I meet, I get to know about greater facets of problems. But thats life. Everyone wears a mask and it takes guts to remove that mask even in front of your friends. Gladly, none of us have any of such inhibitions and we talked till the cows came back.

We moved from UK to an ice cream parlor. After enjoying ice cream, we went back to Mahesh's place. We chatted till around 2:30 in the night. I briefly met Mahesh's mom but we asked her to not loose any of her sleep coz of us. Pranay went back to his place. Mahesh and I hit the bed soon after. The tough part of the trip was yet to come. I had to get up in 2 hours time. Phew ... !!

I had asked Biwi to call me up at 4:30 in case I dont get up. But I didnt need that. I got up at 4:30 and got ready by 5:15. I take my hat off to Mahesh who got up with me and made tea for me which was not required. I had tea and biscuits and left from there. I took a rik to Thane station. Throughout the week, I was asking people which one of Mahalaxmi and Mumbai Central stations is closer to Mahalaxmi temple since that was the place I needed to go to. The unanimous reply was Mahalaxmi station but for that I needed to switch at Dadar to the Western line of Mumbai's railway system. Instead, Mahesh suggested that I can remain on the Central line and travel upto Byculla. I did that. While in the local, there was a noise like that of a firecracker. Everyone looked in the direction of the sound with a sense of alarm. When everyone realised it was just another sound, they got back to what they were doing. This happens with Mumbai.

I got down at Byculla. Now I needed to hire a taxi to go to Mahalaxmi temple.

I had seen this in so many movies that a person gets into a taxi and "downs" the meter himself since the driver is sitting far away from the meter. I tried doing it myself but I was rotating the meter the wrong way. The meter is supposed to be rotated towards the driver's side. It means, if you are sitting at the seat adjacent to the driver, you rotate it clockwise.

I got down right in front of Mahalaxmi temple at 7 am and saw the VFS office in front of me. I asked the security guard about when I can go in. He asked me the interview time. Since it was at 9 am, he told me that it will take time coz the ones scheduled for 8 had just gone in. I went to Mahalaxmi temple. Then I went to the backside of the temple which is a great place to be. The temple is situated alongside the sea which also brushes past Haji Ali a little down the same road. On the opposite end of the road is the famous Worli seaface.

I got down from the temple, had a cutting and called Biwi that I have reached the destination. As soon as I went back to the VFS office, they announced that the people scheduled for 9 am can now go in. It was 8 am. I went in and deposited my bag and cellphone in the locker. For all people wanting to go for the Visa interview, its not necessary that you wear good/professional/formal clothes when you go to the VFS office. They have dressing rooms where you can change into the appropriate attire. I didn't know this.

There is a very nice lounge where you can wait till you are taken to the American consulate. They charge Rs. 200 but its worth it. You can have sandwiches from the cafeteria as well as coffee along with watching the stuff being played on the giant screen. Plus, its not necessary to book the lounge from Pune itself. You can book it at runtime from Mumbai VFS office as well.

I waited till 9:40. Then it was announced that the people scheduled for 9 am can go and board the bus to the consulate. I boarded the bus and reached the consulate in 5 minutes (its hardly a km).

At the consulate, we were asked to submit the petition copy, passport and interview letter. This was even before we entered the consulate. After entering, we stood in another queue. All our stuff was checked her. Guys were supposed to remove their wallets, rings and belts. Basically, everything other than your clothes. I could not get past the security check. I tried 3 to 4 times and later realized that I had not removed my "Kada". After that, we entered yet another queue.This one was for fingerprinting. You are given a token and then asked to provide fingerprints for all 10 fingers. I did all this and then had to sit and wait for my token number to be called.

I was done with fingerprinting by 10:30. My token number was called at 10:55. The announcement was for 5 token numbers and mine was the last in the lot. I went up to counter no. 10 and saw the 4 people waiting in front of me. The first 2 must have taken 5 minutes collectively. The 3rd one was grilled for about 10-12 minutes and he came out grim faced. The one in front of me came out within a minute I guess. It was time I went in. I saw the time. It was 11:13.

The interviewer was a stout fellow with a round face and a french beard. He asked me if he can see my token. I gave it to him. Then he asked me 4 questions, the answers to which were very short.

1). Whom do you work for in India?
2). Whom are you going to work for in the US?
3). How many employees does it have?
4). What does MCS mean?

With this, he handed me the petition paper and asked me to carry it when I travel. It took me 58 seconds to be out.

I was confused. I didn't know if the Visa was granted or not. Anyway, I came out of the consulate and decided I will walk back to the VFS office to collect my stuff from the locker. It took me 20 mins to reach the VFS office. The people at VFS told me that if they haven't given the passport back to me, it means they have granted the Visa. I collected my stuff and left the VFS office. I called Biwi, Charan, my consultant, my in-laws, Sabhtarsha, Pranay and Mahesh and told them about the Visa. But it was just 11:45. I had a ticket booked for Pragati express from VT at 4:25 pm. I needed to kill a lot of time.

I went to Haji Ali and laid a "Chaadar" at the durgah. Then I came back to the chowk and went to my favorite hotel in Mumbai - Noorani. I had Chicken tikka biryani and pepper chicken and it seemed be a little too much. I asked the person to pack the remaining stuff. It was 1 pm and I was still 3.5 hours away from my train. I had not met Anay so far. So I thought I will call him one last time. Luckily, he received my call and I told him that I will come and meet him. His office is at Vikhroli which is 10 stations away from Byculla. I hired a taxi to Byculla station. The driver was an old man with a white moustache and he must be in his 60's. While driving, I asked him the place where he hails from. He said UP and then he asked me "Aap yeh kyu puchh rahe ho?". I needed some convincing to prove that I am not from MNS and I dont intend to hurt him in anyway. I was lucky that Byculla station was not too far off.

Getting to a place in Mumbai needs concise planning about time. You need to ascertain the time you will take to reach the source station, the time to stand in the ticket queue, the time to actually board a train, the time to travel between source and destination stations, the time to get transport from destination station to destination address. When I calculated all this, it came out to be an hour or so. Assuming I started at 1:15, it would be 2:15 when I meet Anay. Thats what happened. I reached Accenture at exactly 2:15 and met Anay. We chatted in their cafeteria and I was good to leave at 2:45 pm. But this time I had to travel from Vikhroli to VT which would take more time. I reached Vikhroli station at 3:10 and got a ticket by 3:15. But there was no local for about 10 minutes which is quite unusual for Mumbai. Finally, I got one at 3:25 and I started counting stations that are remaining. I had one hour to go for my train from VT. Thankfully, I reached on time. It was 4:15 when I reached VT. I left Mumbai in 10 minutes time.

As the train passed Thane station, I started thinking about the previous night and wondered when I will be able to meet my friends again. Hopefully, it will be sooner than later. One more time in my life ... I will have to say ... Mumbai Meri Jaan ... !!

Cheers ... !!