...alights in Mumbai.
Well, the title and the phrase above form a sentence. But then, its much more than just a sentence to me. This is the first leg of the my journey, when the wind ruffled my feathers, when my wings had to prove their worth.
I don't wish to term myself as a religious fanatic, but if the word fanatic implies that I had an 'excessive and single-minded zeal', I guess the term is apt. It had been a long time spent with ISKCON. The interest took me into the realm of various scriptures, across believes and religions; shaped my ideals, my thoughts and actions. I am not a grand-old guy reflecting on my past life, but at 24 looking back at your teenage does make you feel that you did some pretty crazy stuff back then. What is crazy for one, may not be to another. Growing up from childhood to adolescence, you do seek a degree of freedom, an identity, above the protection of your parents; you need a thought process to latch on to, that makes you feel independent. However, ISKCON was not an adolescent craze that faded later on. I feel, it was the best thing that ever happened to me. Looking back, I had indeed bogged myself down with complex, mostly self-concocted rules so that I stick to the simple ideals laid down by the scriptures I had read. The reason I say this in a travelogue is because my journey began with me taking the first step out of my own small world - a world which I had guarded against "moh-maya" (worldly illusions). LOL!!!
A call from Larsen & Toubro Infotech to report at it's Mahape center on 30th July 2012, post my graduation two months earlier was the reason I had to leave my nest, my home in Bangalore. Being a central government employee, my dad had booked a room at the Mumbai branch office-guest house in Marol, Andheri. At noon, 26th July, 2012 we boarded our train to Dadar from Yeshwanthpur railway station.
I remember few things from the journey. The lovely western ghats to begin with. Monsoon in India does quench the thirst of the preceding summer months. It does rain heavily over the western ghats. The lush greenery of the tropical rain forest is a soothing balm to sore eyes.
(We din't own a camera back then, so the pics I post here are from the internet, which I assume are under the Creative Commons License :-p)
The second thing I remember is the kanda vada and bhajji, Onion fritters, which were sold by the railway caterers on train. Well, the vadas are very common, its the usage of kanda that I remember. Pyaz is the word I was familiar with referring to onions, not kanda.
I remember this really tall RPF (Railway Police Force) personnel making rounds. I occupied the top berth which is almost 6.5 feet off the floor of the train. But this RPF guy was tall, pretty pretty tall. I could see his full face from the top berth, Good Lord!!! Another peculiar incident I vividly recall associated with the RPF, which I had never been through, is their insistence that all passengers down the shutters and windows. It was late in the night, the train halted at the first railway junction in the state of Maharastra on that route. The RPF personnel got onto the train, literally woke up everybody ordering them to down the shutters and windows and not open them at any cost. We were supposed to be going through a naxalite area, or something... nothing untoward happened, but I had never been though such a scenario again.
We made friends with fellow passengers in the same coach. They were on their way to Jamnagar in Gujarat. Of the many things which they spoke of, a thing which I remember is a torn, smudged, crumpled, barely recognizable 5 rupee note in a plastic pouch which one of them was carrying. A smallest of cello-tape on a note renders it unusable in Bangalore or in any place I am aware of; here was a guy carrying a currency note in the worst possible condition, saying such currency note would be accepted in the Saurastra region in Gujarat in its full value. It was disbelief for me, till I checked this out for myself on a lady selling roasted corn near Somnath Temple, in Veraval, Gujarat. On that trip, a rickshaw driver returned a change with a barely recognizable 5 rupee currency note, though I would normally protest, this time I silently accepted - I was reminded of what I had heard in the trip to Mumbai, I had to see for myself. I handed over this note to the lady, anticipating a protest, but the note was accepted by the lady without a word!!!
I don't remember many of the details anymore. Of the few more things that I do remember, I do not wish to speak of them in a travelogue, at least not beyond the personal view points I have revealed in the second paragraph of this post. What happened IN Mumbai, constitute the upcoming posts...
Happy Reading.
Well, the title and the phrase above form a sentence. But then, its much more than just a sentence to me. This is the first leg of the my journey, when the wind ruffled my feathers, when my wings had to prove their worth.
I don't wish to term myself as a religious fanatic, but if the word fanatic implies that I had an 'excessive and single-minded zeal', I guess the term is apt. It had been a long time spent with ISKCON. The interest took me into the realm of various scriptures, across believes and religions; shaped my ideals, my thoughts and actions. I am not a grand-old guy reflecting on my past life, but at 24 looking back at your teenage does make you feel that you did some pretty crazy stuff back then. What is crazy for one, may not be to another. Growing up from childhood to adolescence, you do seek a degree of freedom, an identity, above the protection of your parents; you need a thought process to latch on to, that makes you feel independent. However, ISKCON was not an adolescent craze that faded later on. I feel, it was the best thing that ever happened to me. Looking back, I had indeed bogged myself down with complex, mostly self-concocted rules so that I stick to the simple ideals laid down by the scriptures I had read. The reason I say this in a travelogue is because my journey began with me taking the first step out of my own small world - a world which I had guarded against "moh-maya" (worldly illusions). LOL!!!
A call from Larsen & Toubro Infotech to report at it's Mahape center on 30th July 2012, post my graduation two months earlier was the reason I had to leave my nest, my home in Bangalore. Being a central government employee, my dad had booked a room at the Mumbai branch office-guest house in Marol, Andheri. At noon, 26th July, 2012 we boarded our train to Dadar from Yeshwanthpur railway station.
I remember few things from the journey. The lovely western ghats to begin with. Monsoon in India does quench the thirst of the preceding summer months. It does rain heavily over the western ghats. The lush greenery of the tropical rain forest is a soothing balm to sore eyes.
(We din't own a camera back then, so the pics I post here are from the internet, which I assume are under the Creative Commons License :-p)
 |
| Grasslands and forests on the western ghats, pic from Wikipedia |
 | ||
| Kanda bhajji |
We made friends with fellow passengers in the same coach. They were on their way to Jamnagar in Gujarat. Of the many things which they spoke of, a thing which I remember is a torn, smudged, crumpled, barely recognizable 5 rupee note in a plastic pouch which one of them was carrying. A smallest of cello-tape on a note renders it unusable in Bangalore or in any place I am aware of; here was a guy carrying a currency note in the worst possible condition, saying such currency note would be accepted in the Saurastra region in Gujarat in its full value. It was disbelief for me, till I checked this out for myself on a lady selling roasted corn near Somnath Temple, in Veraval, Gujarat. On that trip, a rickshaw driver returned a change with a barely recognizable 5 rupee currency note, though I would normally protest, this time I silently accepted - I was reminded of what I had heard in the trip to Mumbai, I had to see for myself. I handed over this note to the lady, anticipating a protest, but the note was accepted by the lady without a word!!!
I don't remember many of the details anymore. Of the few more things that I do remember, I do not wish to speak of them in a travelogue, at least not beyond the personal view points I have revealed in the second paragraph of this post. What happened IN Mumbai, constitute the upcoming posts...
Happy Reading.
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