Roaming Around

The Elephanta trip was organized as we were bored of the monotony of the TIFR routine life. One fine Sunday morning we (me, barrel, sujan, janu, ashim, dinesh (Madurai), harsh & harsh, pintu (IIT Bombay) & tanuj (IIT Bombay)) left from the Gateway of India towards Elephanta. The sea ride on the ferry was one nice experience. It was a first for me. So, it was very much special in my life. I have crossed the river Ganges before but a sea is a sea and the beauty of this part of the sea was just awesome. It was surrounded by hills on one side and Mumbai on the other two.
The island has the elephanta caves which are famous for their architecture about which further details can be obtained from the following website:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elephanta_Caves
The caves consisted of massive structures of shiva dating back to ninth century. Apart from that there was a hill called the cannon hill which had Navy cannons on it, though we saw only one. (Pintu was the smart aleck, he saw the others. Here Ashim didn’t wish to go up and tried hard to discourage us but later on followed the suit himself and hope enjoyed as well. The way back to Mumbai was great too but almost all of us slept like logs in the return journey.
The trip was a respite from the daily routine as we fell into the same routine Monday onwards. The next Wednesday in the night me, Sujan and Arun went for walk through Colaba in the pretext of having icecream. We saw Naturals on our way (Sujan’s favourite). We walked past it as we were to come back in a little while. But, as soon we reached the Strand market, Sujan challenged our fitness and jab mardangi!! ko koi challenge kare to!! We walked straight upto Gateway and came back. By that time well Naturals was closed and we had to settle for two ice-bars from another store. Well it earmarked the beginning of walks through Mumbai for us. I personally walked from hostel to Nariman point, CST to Gateway, Gateway to hostel (Quite a few times), walked through Dadar (Shivaji park & Sidddhivinayak), Churchgate to Gateway & of course Parel (went all the way wrong)………..
On another Sunday, we went to Juhu beach. Me, Sooraj, Arun and Dinesh went to dadar first and Harsh ½, Pintu and Akshay went directly to Juhu. It was for the first time, I boarded the fabled Mumbai local trains. We went from CST to Dadar in almost an empty train but a big crowd was waiting for us in Dadar and we had a little tough time getting down. We roamed around Dadar for a chemistry book (which we found at last). But in the meantime I bought two Kurtas (which I bet my mother won’t approve of!!!). We roamed around the electrical market searching for an ISI marked 1000 watt drinking water heating rod (Sooraj bhai !!!!!), but ended up with a ISI marked Prestige Water heating kettle (which came with a 15 A plug and we had only 5 A. This resulted in another trip to Dadar).
We boarded a Western local for Santacruz and experienced what crowd is !!!!!!. There was enough place only to put my feet. Someone told me that I was lucky to do so as it was Sunday. Otherwise I would be standing on my toes. I was worried about my getting down at Santacruz. But it was quite simple. We were thrown out of the compartment. While others resumed walking, we gasped for breath. First time in Mumbai, I saw a queue waiting for a bus. We jumped the queue and were in the bus to Juhu beach. The beach was bigger than Girgaun and this time bathed. The sand of Juhu beach is still in my Bermuda pockets. Harsh ½ and yours truly bathed like anything. We were turned quite a few times by the waves. I ventured quite a distance even though I don’t know swimming.
After that we had the taste of fabled Bhelpuri, Panipuri and Pav – Bhaji. They were overpriced but were not much greater than what I ate in Nagpur or Pune. After that on Akshay and Pintu’s insistence we went to ISCON temple. The walk was breezy and hot as we had the Mallu atheists with us who just debated on the concept of god and religion. Two were pucca dharmiks whereas Harsh ½ , Dinesh and I were to suffer. We went inside the temple while the mallus waited outside. Pintu had a jig inside. I didn’t like the place as such. But now came the trouble, none of the taxis or autos were ready to take us to Santacruz (Ulta padta hai, kaun 9 baje wahan se aayega!) and Ville Parle (rasta toota hai!, actually 100m leading to the station was broken). Four were lucky to get a taxi and we walked to Ville Parle without even knowing the route. Anybody you ask will say it will take 15 minutes. Well our 15 minutes ended in 35-45 minutes and at last we boarded a train to Churchgate. We ate just outside the station and came back tired.
This was our last trip to any tourist destination in Mumbai. Rests were only walks…
As promised my next will be on Satti………