It was the first time ‘Stupid-Dip’ (or I) was travelling to meet ‘S’ (No points for guessing), All the way to Andheri in the frickin rains of Mumbai…
Btw I had written this a coupla months back without knowing that on writing this piece, the Rain-God would shower me with 10-equivalent Monsoons… Its all dried up now, and I have finally mustered the courage to publish this post…
But before I begin, a Sermon (All Rise) …
O ‘Rain-God’, Our lakes are full, water flows from the tap all round the day, Please Spare us!!!
Prologue
Once upon a time Stupid-Dip partook in an adventure… from Cuffe Parade to Andheri (East) to meet S… Moral of the Story… Dip is Stupid and Mumbaikars are Evil Robots on Energizer batteries!!!
Chapter 1: Leaving the Work Place
No Boss in Office… Stupid-Dip (or I) leaves @ 5:30…Sharp!!! Only hope of getting to Station… 1 Khatara 20-seater Office Bus, having an engine of a TVS, Color of Fresh Crap, the bus-seats smelling almost as bad, 50 sarkari maid-servants (‘naukar’) not very much unlike myself with their ‘pregnant-bellies’ and Me… All waiting to reach Churchgate just to BEGIN THE journey…
At this point I realize that my beloved ‘Happy’ Chaata has been stolen by the evil ROBOT Taxi Wala… and it’s raining like GOD has a bladder problem…
Not to be disappointed or deterred with some of God’s pee-blessing on his head the protagonist Stupid-Dip decides to replace the beloved memory of his ‘Happy’ with something called a ‘Sardar-Branded’ Chaata… wonder why Helicopters’ need chaatas??? A word about my ‘Sardar’… It closes only when it is open!!! In case you are wondering what eccentric mathematical puzzle this is… don’t bother, basically the chaata only latches when its spokes are pointing outwards like Krishna’s Chakra… So it’s either a shorter Chakra or a Hawaldar’s Dandi…but always a WMD!!!
Chapter 2: Churchgate is no ‘Gate-way’ to Heaven
After having somehow exited the ‘Sarkari-Band-wagon’, I began my descent into the Netherlands… a very wet Churchgate Hell of a subway… Somehow I managed to keep my focus on the only ‘Soles’ in front and somehow took a ‘Swim-of-Faith’ over the watery grave and landed onto the other side…
Having crossed I was posed with 2 options… which read… Virar-Fast or Andheri-Slow…
Let me start by explaining the 2 choices as it would appear to a ‘Normal’ person… Virar is a station located only a few light-years from Churchgate, and Andheri is only a few million miles… Fast trains only stop at those stations which have the capacity to hold 1 billion evil mumbaikars, and slow stops at them all… the fast travels at the speed of light and the slow at the speed of Bareilly’s Cow driven Station Wagons… net effect, if I took Virar (F) I could reach Andheri in 25 mins (IF I Survived) and if I take the Bareilly express I would reach in over an hour…
Now let’s talk about REALITY… The train Virar (F) is actually called “Virar or Death” while the Andheri(S) is called “If you value your life and don’t stay in Virar… take this” … Apparently it is fabled that even if there is no one but you in the Virar (F) some hidden force holds you back at any other stop… However, God-forbid if there are people a consensus is quickly reached where in you are told that if you exit at any stop but Virar, they will kill you… One 80-kilo colleague (this is before he became a sarkari naukar…now he is 120) had to jump on the other side on the rail tracks to escape the Virar Panchayat just because he let the words slip “I will get off at Andheri”… Sure he was ‘DROPPED OFF’!!!
Thus I took the ‘Life’ option and got onto the ‘Andheri & Still Alive’ option…
Chapter 3: The Andheri Transporter
Not too much happened here… other than the guy sitting next to me playing Solitaire on a cell phone… which I swear Blackberry Top-brass could not tell apart but was Called Ass-ys… So while he played with his ‘Ass’ I continued my Mental Preparation of the Unknown - to finally alight at the Destination… Andheri… True to its name it symbolizes ‘The Dark’ (Not just cuz all the Tam-expats stay here) but because like ‘Mordor’ it is indeed a land of Darkness…
Chapter 4: The Endless Walk
To give you a fair idea of my journey ahead let me first explain S’s house… S’s house is a ‘Palace’ (read – 2BHK in Mumbai parlance) surrounded by a moat of Garbage… Like the Lotus which is born amidst all that crap created by the millions of Mumbai… Thankfully it wasn’t flooded!!! S’s house is situated exactly 10 mins from the station and 5 mins from the Highway – the ideal location… How tough could it possibly be???
Having emerged from the Andheri - Transporter, I found myself in the Pacific Ocean of Homo-sapienses… trust me I was like one droplet in an ocean… I had no way to go but forward at an acute angle towards the Overhead Corridor in the footsteps of my ‘Sole-Mate’… I was often given the ‘elbow’ for not maintaining the correct angle and somehow got to the Overhead in the Flow… By the time I emerged my 2500 Buck ‘Hush-Puppies’ were screaming like pups whose tails were run over by screaming auto rickshaws…
Just as I was about to exit the station I found that my swimming skills would be put to the test… there were Gi-normous Puddles all around me and all the other homo-sapienses were playing hopscotch on little bricks and every time they missed one there was a BIGG SPLASHHH and everyone was wet upto their Undies…
As soon as I managed to ‘wade’ through I entered a One-way… It was a bleddy Human-One-Way… There were people only moving in 1 direction… and all against me… All of them trying to gauge my eyes out with their Happy Chaatas while I had poor Sardar… So I started walking Blind… Didn’t matter much as everytime I got hit on both sides I knew I was on the right way…
By the time I reached… I COULDN’T BELIEVE I HAD DONE IT… I was wet… My shirt was wet from the rain outside and the sweat inside (not just my own)… I somehow managed to cross the moat of garbage and walked in…
Wait that’s not all…
Final Chapter: The ABODE
The guard at the entrance: Where are you going?
Dip: 6th Floor
Guard: Where?
Dip: 6th Floor
Guard: Where?
Dip: 6th Floor
…………… This continued in a circular loop for a few more times before the Lift came… Btw the official Code of Ethics of the Building is that ‘No Mulgas Allowed’… the First time I thought it was ‘Murgas’ and took great offense, but as it turns out Mulga means Boy… So the Guard was only doing his job…
Btw the Bldg is on Super-Energy-Saver Mode… the Fan only comes on when u press on a button… and I mean keep pressing or else it stops… So if you want it slightly slower than Full speed… You have to press, then leave, Press then leave… and so on…
Epilogue
STUPID-DIP HAD REACHED! He had met S. Made the trip worthwhile didn’t it???
