Sights and sounds of Mumbai Ch:4

Once upon a time , not so long ago, the dark boy shining shoes was the post card Mumbai. Today you may not find him. The naked poverty seems to have gone away. In place of the shoe shining boy or the gold biscuit smuggler, there are executives in prim clothes rushing off in the suburbs. They've their mobile phones to make deals even when on trains.

Take a closer look into the crowded suburban train. It's said to be the show piece of the financial capital. There is a palpable tension in the air. Men from different castes and backgrounds are squeezed together into pulp. There's the rush to get out in your station, when the people are trying to get in settting off a stampede. There's curses and obscenities in languages you barely understand. Old people fight for survival with the young, rich with the poor. There's an unmistakable human stench in the train as you wait breathless, under someone's armpit for your station.

People jump out, rush for a bus, do two or three shifts come back late at night to wake up early morning for the routine. Mumbai has all the trappings of a happening city. Except that there's no equivalent  quality return for the amount you put in.

I stayed a night with a friend from college . I had to spend a night listening to how the girls everywhere were terribly bothering him by asking him to marry them. The next day he took me for a ride along the highway. The desolated waste pieces of land are fast being grabbed by corporations. Huge rise buildings adorned by the
crests of western companies dot the skyline. But the people who work there have to move out into outskirts because the city is no longer affordable. But there are wide roads and trains to take him to his workplace.

Still the star hasn't left the eyes. The shit life is termed as 'resilience' by our beloved media.