I was in Vashi yesterday, the place from where my "Mumbai Experience" started. I was meeting the juniors there, who would take our place there and go on to be the next organizers of the Bengali Cultural Programmes that we had organized for the last two years. I have stayed in Mumbai for three years now. During this time I led a dual life, the Vashi Life and the Andheri life. They called it the 1201 life. If somebody had a macro-view of me, the person would see two different people. It would be a diversion if I started analyzing that here because I want to re-live the dream time here. But its too much of an experience baggage for me to handle. What do I talk about? The best way is to go chronologically.
The journey started with Rajesh, Alok, Dinesh and Raju via a Jet Airlines flight on 26th August, 2005 (Now I realise that whenever you migrate to different locations after you have stayed in a place since birth, you are filled with a long phase of numbness. You live in a trance state and the thought that you are leaving the people whom you have spent your entire life with is too painful to sink in easily).
After a brief stay in the serene beauty of nature at BARC, I had to move to Vashi where my company had provided me a teeny-weeny two room flat where I would have to stay with three other guys whom I would meet for the 1st time. This was the rule , however, for me the rule was partially true as Raju, whom I knew for the last 7 days also got into the same flat.The other two guys would go on to become one of the closest and caring friends that I would have during the 1st three months when we were in training. Vikas and Sandeep. Vikas was a scholar from Ghaziabad and Sandeep was a Mallu hunk.
In training, Sandeep and my story would go on to become the Jay and Veeru story of Sholay fame. Sandeep had a bike and I was the partner in crime at the backseat (alas!!! Sandeep dint have a cute chick which he sometimes rued). We were funny drunkyards and quite (in)famous because of that in office. That was why certain sections despised us.
I flunked in the exams and was almost on the verge of being thrown out. However, in the end I found out "means" of scraping through and at the end of training still found myself in the company. I was to be posted in Pune but at the last moment things changed and I got a posting in Mumbai. Sandeep was going to Chennai which made me very sad but I had more reasons to be happy.
Another incident happened days before Sandeep when I went the closest to death. I was to meet up Diya at Banstand and Sandeep was to have a spped ride in the Reclamation area which had become the Biker's Paradise after the movie Dhoom. So we went had as usual had a good time and at about 9:30PM, we were coming back. Diya took a rickshaw and we started off in our bike. We hit the Bandra Sion Highway and next what happened lets see from Diya's camera angle.
Diya says: I was in the rickshaw and a little sleepy as the rick hit the Bandra Sion highway. Suddenly my eyes opened and I saw a bike twisting and turning before me. The driver clearly had lost balance and I was a glimpse of Sandeep's green jacket fluttering and I closed my eyes.
Back to Kaustav's angle: Mid-way throuogh our fall. Sandeep flew off the bike. I tried taking a look behind to see if trucks are coming from behind. Normally the road is full of vehicles plying at over 100 kmph. I was holing the back rod and as the bike slid, it was pulling me along.
I let go off the hadle at the last moment and I took about 5 rolls to hit the pavement and heard a rickshaw screech near to my head. Next, Diya jumped out of that rick, totally perplexed and probably more scared than us. Sandeep was alright. he came running to me and asked if I was okay and checked the bike to see that the back wheel had punctured. I had a bad bruise on my ankle that would trouble me for the next two months. However, I knew that some one above was protecting me for I was a dead man.
After Prache came to Mumbai on the 13th of December, me, Prache and Dia became the unseperable trio who would have the best times in our lives. The bandstand adda, the TISS visits and then the depressing times with the Mumbai blast, the distressing Kandivli flat, the dirty times in the Mumbai rains and then to cap it all, stunt-man Saikat Dutta's life-threatning accident had brought unwanted but loaded excitement to our not-so-happening lives. In the mean time though, we had some really good times when we went to Lonavla and a chunk of my college buddies from Pune came for the Lonavla trip.
Oh again I forgot to mention my office life where I found the greatest of friends in Akshay and Shirish, both from my training batch and our friendship was well recognized in the Winchester Building that the trio were the biggest foodies around. With the meagre salary that I was handed with every month at that time, we always spent lavishly at expensive restaurants. People envied us for this and some of the folks who had struggled in their earlier lives to rise up levels cursed us that we were not doing judgement to our finances.We answered to them in a well-known simple sentence: We live to eat.
I also found a very close buddy in office who would be a dump for all the frustrations that I had in office. The epic-size conversations that we had in office was so refreshing. At the same time lots of "issues" were going around with friends common to us and me and Devshri were almost in the epicentre of all those.
This is how 2006 was going on when we had little frustrations growing over the incessant mumbai rains, quick-disappearing of our earnings and filthy roomies.
Then came an eventful week in July which changed our lives quite a bit and took our emotional strength to a different level.
It started on a happy note though. The Mumbai gang, the Pune group and Chang and Trapita, our college friend-couple-we all decided a Goa trip. Tickets were bought, hotels were being scouted, and all plans were at a final stage. The trip would be during the 15th August Independence Day weekend.
Onthe 11th July week, it was i think a Monday, when I was returning from office at almost 9:30 in the night, frustrated after a hectic day in office. I was at our building lobby when I saw Prachetash standing, extremely serious and talking on the fone. He paused his conversation to tell me that Dia was missing. I was so tired that the words never registered.
The detail was that Dia was not in office, her fone was switched off and nobody in the city knew where she was. We were tensed but the maximum tension grabbed the man who I thought was the sysmbol of calmness. Saikat was worried and rightly so but the news that he had started for Mumbai told us that there was enough reason to get tensed about the thing. After an hour of anxiety, we came to know that Dia wanted to take some time off from the world just to figure out things in life. (At that time we didnot know that she ould need a Krishh dose for that, else we would have shown not-so-friendly emotions to her). So the fact was that she was alright but wont come back to her Andheri flat while Saikat was reaching Mumbai and would stay at her flat. Abby, Dia's roomie asked me to go to their place at 11 in the night because she had never seen Saikat and I was the common thing.
Anyway, this incident kicked off the dramatic week. Next day, I was working in office and it was about 5:30 in the evening when suddenly one of the project leads went around the floor announcing that there was a series of bomb blasts in the western suburb railways. It started with a count of four and finally the figures were 7 blasts, about 200 dead and hundreds injured.
I tried calling home but the network was jammed. I went out of office and could not get any rickshaw. Finally I could reach Prache and he told me to go to his office and we would go home together. News again: Dia usually takes the train at the same time when the blasts occurred. We were sure that she would be okay however, we could not reach her. After some anxious waiting, we heard that she is okay and she could not get to the train because of some last moment meeting.
The entire western express highway was packed with cars because the explosions had broken down the communication lifeline of Mumbai which is daily availed by a few millions.
However, this blast showed the true spirit of Mumbai and this was the first time I fell in love with the city.
People had come out of their houses with bread and water glasses and were serving the passesngers who were stranded in packed buses for long hours. There were no volunteers, no association had undertaken this. This was Mumbai's answer to the terrorists and to all who curse the city that it has no emotions: "Mumbai is a dreamland, larger than life".
