Ye Hai Mumbai Meri Jaan

I am in love with this city.

And I love it for the same reasons people dislike it for. The traffic, narrow roads, humidity, rains...everything that defines Mumbai.

Hey! We just crossed Lata Mangeshkar’s house. Gosh my Dad is going to be so happy about this one! But I couldn’t visit a lot of places, courtesy the hectic schedule we had here in the past 4 days.

Ok, coming back to why I love this city. For firsts, I stayed in South Mumbai, apparently the posh-est area of the Mumbai City and kept shuttling between two five star hotels :P. That’s a different story. But if you ask me, I would have loved this city from any other locality as much as I do from Marine Drive.

And while we’re talking of Marine Drive, it’s awesome. Despite the too-in-your-face public display of affection that we encountered the first day (there will be a few people giggling at this), the place is cool! If we had anything like this here in the NCR, I’m sure all of our picture archive would have had it in the background.

The only sad part is the beaches. Although I visited only Chowpati, but the sight of it would have taken anyone off beaches forever. Landfill site it was! Right next to the beach, the Marine Drive is so well maintained in terms of cleanliness. Please, someone tell the Mumbai Administration that giving some time and attention to the beaches would be worth every penny!

In spite of getting disappointed at the beach, I still wish I could stay in this city for some more time, maybe even work here! That would have been great!

As the aircraft leaves the city boundary and advances over the ocean, I try to catch a last glimpse of the Nariman Point, The Queen’s Necklace, Hotel Trident, Air India Headquarters and the last of the city, abruptly disappearing into the Arabian Sea.
Sigh....I’ll come back soon Mumbai...hopefully!