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My name is immaterial

Pali Hill is considered to be one of the poshest addresses in Mumbai. This is in Bandra. Considered to be the poshest and most expensive suburb in Mumbai. You have all the Khans and Kapoors living here. I suspect that the tax collections from this suburb is amongst the highest in Mumbai.

Yet it took me close to twenty five minutes to drive down from the base of Pali Hill to Bandra P O which is less than a kilometre away on Saturday morning.

Chaotic traffic. Cars tottering like battered prize fighters. Autos whizzing past like mosquitoes. Pedestrians crawling all over except on the footpath. And people dragging handcarts oblivious to all. Not a policeman in sight. What really livened up the madness was the fact that roads had been dug up. There was no advance notice. So you reached your turning and realised that you could no go further as the road was dug up. You had to turn back into the snaking traffic. You would be really lucky if the person opposite you had the sense, patience and manners to wait and give way. In most cases you would be faced by people refusing to give you a square inch. The fact this made everyone go deeper and deeper into a black hole of traffic induced inertia be damned.

Did I say there were no cops? There was a posse outside Globus cinema guarding SRKs film from Goebell's Sena.

All that the rest of us could hope for is to get drunk on the' spirit of Mumbai' and sleep off our Saturday
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Comments

Ushnish Ghosh said…
Dear kalyan
How are you?
Was planning to come to Mumbai but landed here in Milano...Thanks for this posting to get some respite from a boring old man's afternoon.
God willing, employer pardoning and weather permitting will be back soon..
Take care
ushnishda
13 February 2010 at 05:14
Corinne Rodrigues said…
We generally find that it's faster to walk within Bandra - especially on Saturdays!
How are things with you, Kalyan. Long time!
C
13 February 2010 at 06:10
Kalyan Karmakar said…
Ushnishda, Milano instead of Mumbai sounds lovely to me. Read your comment on Sandeepa's blog. Great to hear that you are having such a wonderful trip

Hi Corinne,

Long time and yes, you are absolutely right :)
14 February 2010 at 23:26
Scarlett said…
I agree! How ridiculous? There are thousands of cops available across Mumbai to protect SRK's movie but there are none to protect North Indians from getting beaten up. How is Ashok Chavan any better than Vilasrao Deshmukh, I wonder. He says Maharashtra govt. had no intelligence regarding the Pune blasts but his deputy Chhagan Bhujbal says they did. And then Chavan says, "I need to check & get back to you"!!!
15 February 2010 at 00:03
Kalyan Karmakar said…
Scarlett...our politicians fail to amaze me but the various Senas and their agendas take the thali peeth...while they have their agenda, they need to ask themselves if this is the most pressing need of the hour
15 February 2010 at 03:29
Mohan said…
That is not only a common sight in mumbai but in other cities in India too! It would be an achievement if we take the same return path to reach home back after traveling to office. Traffic and the dis-orderly traffic continue to make me wonder and say a final word - Yes, God exists in this country.
4 March 2010 at 04:38
Kalyan Karmakar said…
Mohan, that's a positive spin :)
7 March 2010 at 11:32
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