Tuesday, July 5, 2011

A Typical Mumbaikar

This one's ,with due credit to Aritra Saha, an ode to the place where I grew up , माझह मुंबई. Here it is;
1. You say "town" and expect everyone to know that this means south of Churchgate.

2 You speak in a dialect of Hindi called 'Bambaiya Hindi', which only Mumbaikars can understand.

3. Your door has more than three locks.

4. Rs 500 worth of groceries fit in one paper bag.

5. Train timings (9.27, 10.49 etc) are really important events of life.

6. You spend more time each month traveling than you spend at home.

7. You call an 8' x 10' clustered room a Hall.

8. You're paying Rs 10,000 for a 1 room flat, the size of walk-in closet and you think it's a "steal".

9. You have the following sets of friend: school friends, college friends, neighborhood friends, office friends and yes, train friends, a species unique only in Bombay.

10. Cabbies and bus conductors think you are from Mars if you call the roads by their Indian name, they are more familiar with Warden Road, Peddar Road, Altamount Road.

11. Stock market quotes are the only other thing besides cricket which you follow passionately.

12. The first thing that you read in the Times of India is the "Bombay Times" supplement.

13. You take fashion seriously. You're suspicious of strangers who are actually nice to you.

14. Hookers, beggars and the homeless are invisible.

15. You compare Bombay to New York's Manhattan instead of any other cities of India.

16. The most frequently used part of your car is the horn.

17. You insist on calling CST as VT, and Sahar and Santacruz airports instead of Chatrapati Shivaji International Airport.

18. You consider eye contact an act of overt aggression.

19. Your idea of personal space is no one actually standing on your toes.

20. Being truly alone makes you nervous.

21. You love wading through knee deep mucky water in the monsoons, and actually call it ''romantic".

22. Only in Bombay, you would get Chinese Dosa and Jain Chicken.

23. You always argue with Delhites that Mumbai is way better than Delhi

24. You still refer to the city as Bombay not Mumbai.

25. When you love bragging about the filmstars and cricketers you've seen

26. When most of your freinds have underworld connections

27. Every three months you look at your street and say "Why're the digging the road again?"

28. "Change" is "Chillar", "Ditching" is a "Kalti" and "Trouble" is "Jhol".

29. "Gheun Tak" is your life ideology.

30. You have been shoo'd away from Marine Drive at 3am by the cops because of an "Unlawful gathering of persons"

31. You actually pay for your rickshaws by the meter.

32. You actually think 30Rs for a Sada Dosa is pretty reasonable.

33. when you spent 6 hours of your day in school and another 3 hours in tuitions.

34. if you ever went to fashion street, got a pair of cheap jeans and had them tagged as a name brand.

35. if you played cricket matches against another building for 5 rupee bets.

36. if you lost tons of MRF rubber balls.

37. When u call cops; 'kaka' and they let u go if u show of your marathi speaking skills .

38. Amitabh Bachchan's house is a landmark.

39. You have been to Matheran or Mahabaleshwar during the summer vacations.

40. You see men (not gay apparently) holding hands and walking in the street.

41. The note to coin changing machine at Churchgate station is idolized.

42. During cricket season all the roads are blocked because people in the streets are looking at television screens in display windows.

43. Automatic vending machines have a sales person sitting next to it just to help you.

44. There are more movie tickets being sold in black than at the ticket office.

45. It takes longer to get off from your house to the station than from one end of Mumbai to another by train.

46. Every cab and rickshaw driver makes small talk with you,

47. You see a herd of people walking at four in the morning to Siddhi Vinayak temple.

48. 'Bun Maska' and 'Vada pav' is the staple diet of most collegians.

49. HORN OK PLEASE is written on every truck, tempo and heavy motor vehicle.

50. You cant drive for more than 10 mins without abusing someone.