MUMBAI from a DELHITE Vantage

It has been a while now I am doing Up and Down in Mumbai, atleast once in an year, sometimes twice the same year. My half a month minimum of one year is spent in Mumbai. It was always in my mind to compare the two cosmopolitans, both somewhat my home now. Maybe I am under-informed or slightly away from the actual picture. My Mumbai friends can easily rectify me and come up with more points, but following is my spectacle to look at the metro city and what makes it unique and different from its counterpart in the north.

1. People: Lots of them. Mumbai is a crowded place. It may be true that Delhi is crowded too. But it looks more in Mumbai because the area is too less for the people to dwell. While on the road, you can see cars, auto-rikshaws, passersby, and shops on the same road.
2. Time: Mumbai is a fast paced city. It is a city that never stops. Be it a terrorist attack, bomb-blast, floods, rain. Look out of your window, you can see people constantly moving around doing their job. This is because Mumbai has no time for petite issues. Fight for living in the cosmopolitan city takes out the necessary time needed to look into such issues.
3. Weather: Humid. Very Humid, very very humid. That’s the only thing I hate about Mumbai and wish I don’t come here. Sea on the side, you wont expect your clothes dry when you go outside. And the most biggest problem is it feels like someone has put a layer of dirt and sweat on your face to prevent you from more tarnishing. Delhi is as hot as Mumbai, may be even two or three degrees more than that, but I like Delhi summers, because it lives there for five months maximum, and it is not humid at all. The heat can kill you but in the month of June, you will hardly get a drop of sweat on your forehead.
4. Train: I had only once experienced in the locals of Mumbai, that too on a holiday. I was told that I am very lucky I haven’t seen the actual crowd of second class bogey. Delhi metro is going through such crowds nowadays, but Mumbai has this for a long time. It is said that it is the lifeline of Mumbai. And I realized it because a trip which could take 3 hours easily on the road was completed in 30 minutes via the train. People travel from surrounding regions, Thane, Nasik, to work in Mumbai. It is definitely a must fro everyone who visits Mumbai. And yes, do keep vigilance of your belongings. It is highly likely you come out of the train with torn pockets.
5. Autorickshaas: You want to go to Dahisar, Kandivali, Bandra, Ghatkopar, or Santa Cruz, you will get an auto. And that too, with a meter. You don’t have to ask them how much will they charge because unlike Delhi, it is evident in Mumbai that riksha means charging with Meter. There is no u-turn in it. It is highly unlikely that you wont get this public convenience if you are going out. Watch the roads and you will see more of these black-yellow vehicle than the others.
6. Traffic: Oh my god! You get irritated standing in Delhi at Naraina crossing? Come to Mumbai, and you will get a two kilometers of traffic jams. I was lucky I was going to catch a train to Aurangabad and I was on the opposite side of the road. I was just looking at the huge traffic that went on and on. And if you think that Highways may be a solution to all these, then I would like to correct you because I saw the traffic jams on the highways only. This time, it was due to a religious procession going on the small road. Yes, a freeway’s small road because if you have come from Delhi, you will be used to six lane roads.
7. Vada Pao: Desi Burger. I cant get over it. I have been to Mumbai for six to seven times now, and every time I come here, Vada Pao is something I never miss. Even when my sister visits, I expect her to come with lots of them, so that my one time meal includes Vada Pao only. It is amazing to see a conglomerate of potato in bread is so famous in Maharasthra. And I crave for it because not a single place in Delhi sells Vada Pao.

There are many other things special about Mumbai which we read in Newspapers like City of Rain Harvesting, Shiv Sena and now Maharashtra Navnirman Sena, and Bollywood, but I haven’t faced any of these in my visits to Mumbai, so wont beable to comment on that. But if I ever come here to live, I would definitely give my take on them too.