10 Things To Do In Mumbai On A Lazy Saturday

Next Saturday, ditch your neighbourhood mall and see Mumbai like a tourist!

1. Go to the National Gallery of Modern Art (NGMA), stand at the centre of the ground floor, and look up. Gaze with awe at the architectural beauty. Enjoy the criss-crossing stairs and galleries, wooden floors, and flawlessly white & cream walls. Ignore the crass marketing disguised as art by Louis Vuitton.

2. Feel sorry for the foreigners paying 15 times the entry fee. (Rs 10 for indians vs Rs 150 for foreigners).

3. Read the plaque at the ticket counter. Appreciate the value of money and inflation. (the gallery was built with a donation of 4 lakh rupees only)

4. Visit the Prince of Wales museum, now known as Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaja Vastu Sangralaya. Realize that you haven't noticed the magnificent building since you've come to Mumbai. Feel sorry for the foreigners again.

5. Feel sorry for Indians for not getting the audio guide free with the Rs 25 entry ticket. Put the money and take it anyway.

6. Be an Indian and economise by taking only one for two people and share!

7. Leisurely enjoy each and every exhibit. Read the signage in Hindi, if you can. Wonder whether reading in Hindi is harder because of the infrequent usage or because of the crappy fonts.

8. Get bored, tired, and hungry. Head to samovar for a bite. Enjoy the street art gallery on your way. Get your name on a grain of rice if you're feeling really touristy.

9. Have the overpriced and tasteless aaloo paratha at samovar. Wonder what the fuss is all about.

10. Catch a bus home for a change. Save some money and reduce your carbon footprint as well.

Water wars are very near

My conversation with a puncture mechanic in a truck terminal. (read the English translation instead)

Me: Iska puncture paani mein daal ke check nahin kar sakte kya?
Mechanic: Nahin, paani nahin hai.
Me: Kyon? Toh le aayo
Mechanic: Arre yahaan peene ke liye paani nahin milta, puncture kahaan se check karein
Me: Kyon?
Mechanic: Paani khareedna padta hai
Me: Kitne ka milta hai?
Mechanic: 10 rupye ka dabba aata hai?
Me: Kitna bada hota hai dabba? Utna bada? (pointing to a largish black can)
Mechanic: Nahin, woh 30 rupye ka hota hai.
Me: Kahaan se khareedte ho?
Mechanic: Woh, wahaan, sandaas se
Me: Kya? (visibly shocked!)
Mechanic: Haan, haath-munh dhone ke liye wahin se paani milta hai
Me: Aur peene ke liye? Woh bhi khareedna padta hai?
Mechanic: Haan, magar woh yahaan se milta hai (pointing to what seemed like a government office in the middle of the truck terminal)
Me: Kitne ka?
Mechanic: Yeh chai-waala kucch hazaar rupye deta hai maheene ke. Agar isse chai loh to paane peene deta hai, nahin to mana kar deta hai.

The Wadala truck terminal is situated bang opposite IMAX & Bhakti Park - a well-off housing colony (where I stay), which receives 24hr water supply. I do not know how the housing society manages a 24 hr water supply, but now I know what the people right across the road have to go through.

Shocking!

[English translation]

Me: Can't you check the puncture by dipping the tube it in water?
Mechanic: No, I don't have water
Me: Why? Then get it
Mechanic: We don't get water to drink around here, how do you expect me to get water for this?
Me: Why?
Mechanic: We have to buy water
Me: How much does it cost?
Mechanic: 10 rupees for a can
Me: How big? That size? (pointing to a largish black can)
Mechanic: No, that costs 30 rupees
Me: Where do you buy it from?
Mechanic: There from the toilet
Me: What? (visibly shocked!)
Mechanic: Yes, but only for washing up & bathing
Me: And what about drinking water, you have to buy that too?
Mechanic: Yes, but that we get from here (pointing to what seemed like a government office in the middle of the truck terminal)
Me: How much?
Mechanic: This tea-stall owner pays about 1000 rupees for a month. If you buy tea from him, he lets you drink water, else he refuses.

Mumbai food sucks!

This side of the country has the suckiest food... ever. Period. No debate about that. It's not quite south, it's not quite north, it's some random "mash-up" gone horribly wrong!

My pet peeve is that Mumbaikars don't know what a sookha bhaaji means. Go to any wayside restaurant, order a plate of mix veg and you'll get potatoes, peas, and carrots floating around in a red coloured slurry. Order chana masaala, and you get boiled chhole (white coloured chickpea) in the same red coloured gravy. Paneer tikka masaala -- same gravy. Paneer handi -- same. Kadhai paneer -- ditto. Veg Kolhapuri, sounds like an authentic Maharathi dish, but no! Same goddam red curry! And it tastes awful. Yechh!

They make a mess out of North Indian food. Which is sort of understandable. But order any South Indian dish and the accompanying sambhar (which is the thing you need to get right) is a semi sweet, semi solid piece of mess.

Don't even bother trying out the paani-puri at chowpati -- sucks! I've had much better and much cheaper paani-puri in Kanpur. They're called gol-gappas up in the north and they can give the Mumbai paani-puri a run for its money. Fifteen (or twenty) bucks to six pieces seems to be the norm here in Mumbai. Back at IIT Kanpur (in front of Hall 3) we used to have five of them for Rs 2.50! Seriously. And after two years when inflation caugh up, the fellows increased their prices.... to Rs 3.00!

So you're only left with Marathi cuisine. Which, IMHO, is virtually non-existent. The only Marathi thing I've eater here is Missal/Ussal Paav which is not that bad. But, heck, how long can you keep eating dried peas and daal-moth in spicy curry?

The only saving grace in Mumbai is the rasta sandwiches and the rasta bhel. The sandwiches at that price simply ROCK! I'm especially fond of the ones I used to have right ouside Star TV's Mahalaxmi office.

And please don't tell me that I'm eating at the wrong restaurants. Sure, if I go to a swanky restaurant every time I need to eat my lunch, I'll probably get a better deal with the food. But swanky restaurant make not the local cuisine. ITC hotels all around the world are going to serve the same Dal Bhukhari. It's the wayside restaurants, the dhabas, the samosa-cutting corners which make the difference...

Rainbow FM: Rocks!

FM Radio -- the only saving grace of Mumbai. Minus that, the 30 min commute in the crawling traffic, amidst the early morning smog, would be a major pain in the ass!

And the crown jewel, of the eight or so channels my borrowed T.Sonic 610 receieves, is the unheard of government operated channel called Rainbow FM. Seriously! The best collection of music (the early morning english show, late afternoon ghazals, evening english show, etc.); the hourly news round ups in Hindi, which remind you of medium wave radio; sensible RJs; and lack of advertisements.

While Rainbow FM is busy concentrating on music, other channels are busy putting up posters in the Mumbai local trains, coming up with funky radio ads, and playing "Crazy Kiya Re" for the three-millionth-twenty-two-thousandth-three hunderedth-seventy-second time!

The only thing that I'm afraid of is Rainbow FM "going the Go FM way." I hope not! But the lack of advertisements means that it's inevitable. Unless the government keeps subsidising the channel to preserve the "culture of good music." Seriously, if the government can dole out subsidies for Haj pilgrims, this is a much better thing to subsidise IMHO!

If you're in Mumbai give Rainbow FM (107.1 MHz) a shot -- you'll love it!