Pink day

Navraatri, meaning festival of 9 nights (nav-9, raatri-nights) is celebrated all over India even though it's a north Indian thing. It involves dancing the Garba (google it), praying to god, thanking him for all that he's given you, buying-wearing new clothes, eating loads of sweets, meeting relatives, etc. an interesting thing abt Navraatri is that every one of the nine days is assigned a specific colour, and everyone wears that day's colour. Literally, EVERYONE. It was pink on, I think, The 9th day (I don't know any of this stuff, I'm a south Indian settled in Mumbai, but the thing abt Mumbai is that ALL festivals are celebrated here. You can celebrate Navraatri wether you're Gujarati or not, you can celebrate Pongal wether your kannadiga, malayali, Telugu, tamiliyan or punjabi. "Yahaan pe sab chalta hai" meaning -in Mumbai, anything is possible) is pink. And on that 9th day, I saw something I don't think I'll see ever again (except maybe on next year's Navraatri). This is what I saw-
EVERY SINGLE WOMAN in the ladies compartment, EVERY SINGLE ONE, was in pink, including myself. The compartment, which was this fungus-y green colour, glowed pink. Not even a nice pink, but a hideous, bright, light pink which does absolutely nothing for the Indian skin tone. It was the most awesome as well as the most disturbing thing I've seen in the trains (thus far). Interestingly, on the other 8 days, abt 50% of the women were in the colour of the day, but on that day, 100%. I tried to take a picture, but the women started giving me the look nd I couldn't . But I tried. AND got pictures. (take that, noisy-woman-next-to-me-who-kept-stepping-on-my-foot). Interstingly#2, I had unknowingly worn pink too :O

Mumbai is a beautiful city. The energy is insane, the happiness is infectious, the festival seasons are magical and the people and the whole city is wonderfully accommodating. Like a giant, super enthusiastic family. We came to Mumbai in 2007 june and within a month, we felt like a part of the city. Mumbaikars. (that sounded so cheesy)

Whoa #2

A train stops at a station for only 18 seconds.

Ganpati puja

The end of september is ganpati puja season. There's pandals (decorated canopies for the large, extravagant ganesha idols)(pronounced: pun daals) (ganesha is the god with an elephant head) for each and every street, gully and apartment complex. I was in matunga, and on 1 small gully I found 5 pandals :O 1 with a Ganesha idol in it.

This poster, on the vikhroli station, always, ALWAYS creeps me out.

Found another one in the Kanjurmarg station.

Kind kommuters

I observed something today.
The 1:00pm to CST had stopped at vidyavihaar, waited a minute, then started moving. A guy was running to get into the next compartment. He got alongside the compartment nd suddenly a whole bunch of hands helped, ok literally pulled him in.
How nice :)

Every time the train nears a station, you can actually feel the train slant toward whichever side the platform will be on. Scary :O

Unclaimed baggage.

Me nd all the other women in the ladies first class found a handbag in the compartment. First thoughts were that it held a bomb. No one wanted to touch it. So naturally, it came into my hands. Inside, was a doctor's prescription, which we OBVIOUSLY didn't understand and a lot of money. We sent this girl to go to the 2nd class compartment to check if it belonged to any of the women there. She got off at sion nd got into the 2nd class compartment. Don't know what happened there, after another station, a group of 3 women climb into our compartment nd ask if we've found a small bag. Sad.
Though, with the bomb thing nd all, it was another little train adventure.

Forgive me :D

What music do I listen to on the train??


Train tracks, of course! XD

Timing is everything.

The happiest time is when the last lecture (which ends at 5:15) is cancelled. Nothing wrong with the subject, or the class, or the teacher, it's just the timing that's atrocious. 5pm the crowds come in. By 5:15, it's impossible to stand without a woman's hand in your face. By 5:25 (the time we get to the station after the last lecture), it's a miracle if you even get onto a train. Today, the last lecture was cancelled. The lord has showed us train travellers some mercy.

Will you look at that. No train to Thane for another 15 minutes. Oh joy -_-

Never get late. EVER.

Never make the fatal mistake of coming late. NEVER. I did, got into the 12:07 train to dadar instead of the 11:55 to cst, nd so I'm standing with another girl's armpit in my face. It's harsh.
The Dadar station has both local and inter-state trains passing, so it's MUUUUUUUCCHH much more crowded than others. if only I could get out at the next station and go back home -_- as if the crowd isn't bad enough, I'm also late to college. Wish me luck.

Mumbai monsoons

Train in rain = bad idea.

Crazy rains!!!

It doesn't always rain for 3 days non-stop on Mumbai. But when it does, it freaking shuts the whole city down!!

It's so bad, it's funny.

On my way back home, the other day, I suffered a moment of insanity.
The crowd that day was double of the usual. The bags, more full than usual. The heat, more merciless than usual. The women, more annoying, more sweaty, more grumpy, more space consuming, more chidchida (hindi for irritable) than usual. So obviously, i was getting stepped on more than usual. It soon got to such an extent that my mind thought it was best, for me, in a situation like that to randomly start laughing. Not giggling-discreetly-to-self kind of laughter, but the OHGOODLORD-that-was-crazy-hilarious! kind.
Good fun. Good fun.

The hawkers.

There are these hawkers who are practically a part of the station, selling the strangest of items. Everything from X rated movies to philips hairdryers for a hundred bucks. Coconuts nd peas in plastic covers to tupperware. How they get their hands on those items, i will never know.